


Wanderings With Werewolves

by Ballyharnon



Series: Doublecrossed [1]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adventure & Romance, First Time, M/M, Memory Charms, Memory Loss, Prostitution, Road Trips, Trains, Werewolves, Wolfsbane, Wolfsbane Potion, World Travel, wolfhart, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 16:21:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 94,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21771160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ballyharnon/pseuds/Ballyharnon
Summary: Remus goes to visit an old friend, and reminisces--as best he can--about the year they spent together, wandering Europe in search of werewolves.
Relationships: Gilderoy Lockhart/Remus Lupin, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Series: Doublecrossed [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1569004
Comments: 7
Kudos: 22





	1. Ending and Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: 
> 
> \--Graphic adult content. Porn with plot, to be clear.
> 
> \--Several characters in this are portrayed as sex workers.
> 
> \--Wolfsbane is treated as an addictive drug with negative side effects. There is also light use of "muggle sedatives," alcohol, and cigarettes.
> 
> \--There is a modest age gap in this relationship: Lockhart is meant to be about 23-24 and Remus is meant to be about 28-29 during the main story, which should fit with the canon timeline.
> 
> \--Because Lockhart's MO is using magic to manipulate people, by the end of the story there will have to be some doubt as to whether everyone would fully consent to everything going on here if they weren't being manipulated.
> 
> .
> 
> Series Notes:
> 
> \-- This is a part of my Doublecrossed series, which is being finished out of order. It should be fine to read it out of order, but any little mysteries brought up here will be explained in upcoming fics, set earlier in the same 'verse.
> 
> \-- Just like the rest of my Doublecrossed series, this is canon-compliant in spirit, but there are some details that aren't exactly accurate to canon and extended "canon" because, in this 'verse, Remus and many other adults are liars, meaning that Harry (and therefore the reader) doesn't ever get _quite_ the real story about the marauders' generation.
> 
> \--Lycanthropy is not a metaphor for anything, it's just lycanthropy.
> 
> .

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A last meeting, and a first meeting.

As he entered the small, sunlit bedroom, Remus couldn't help but be struck by the feeling that he had done exactly the same thing before--it must have been just like coming into any of the rooms he had shared with Gil in the past, aside from the institutional quality of the architecture and the antiseptic smell of the air. His old friend sat reading a thin paperback novel at a simple wooden desk by the window, wearing his gold wire-rims and the sort of pyjamas and dressing gown he most preferred. Remus was glad someone had seen to that. It might have meant that he had retained enough of who he was to hold the same preferences, and that the staff were kind enough to let him exercise them.

"Hullo, Gil," Remus said, feeling awkward.

The other man turned to him, smiling pleasantly--friendly enough, but with no hint of recognition. "Hello," he said, seeming oddly vacant, even simple. It was offputting--for a moment, Remus wanted to just turn and leave. "Would you like an autograph?" Gil asked.

"No, thank you," he said through his nerves. "I expect you won't remember me, but my name is Remus. We used to be friends."

"Ah, did we? That's nice." His real accent was back, Remus noticed distantly.

"Yes, it is, isn't it." He smiled, gently he hoped. "Albus Dumbledore was able to arrange for me to come and see you. I... was told you wouldn't remember him, either." 

"No," Gil said, frowning vaguely as he searched what memories he had: breakfast on a tray, walking in the garden that morning with his mysterious attendant, meeting with the Healer who had patiently asked him a few questions he couldn't answer. "No, I'm afraid I don't."

"That's alright," Remus said quickly. "I understand." Though Gil had spent some time with the old man after the accident, it would be gone now. The mediwitch who had shown Remus in had carefully explained that his old friend could make no memories now, waking each day wiped clean again--that if Remus came again it would likely be the same visit over again. He would be moved to a resident's ward soon, until or unless some improvement could be observed. There was some hope of eventual recovery, she'd said, given enough time and care and luck, but she hadn't seemed that hopeful to Remus. Some bitter, inconsiderate part of him was almost jealous, though he knew it had to be its own sort of torment, sometimes at least.

But Gil seemed content enough today.

Remus stepped farther into the room. He started to seat himself upon the end of the bed, where he could speak levelly, familiarly with Gil, but then he stopped himself and gestured towards it. "May I?"

Gil swept a hand out in invitation. "Certainly," he said with a charming smile.

He sat, leaning forward a little to search the younger man's face. Gil looked back at him, still smiling pleasantly, still with no hint of kenning or cunning. Finally, Remus smiled back at him, and brought out the half-opened package he carried inside his overrobe. "I've brought you some things--just a few little gifts."

"Ah, that's kind," Gil said.

One by one, he brought out the little treats from their brown paper nest: a couple of bars of dark chocolate, some of the liquorice allsorts he had used to like, his favourite lavender soap from Yardley's. Gil examined each item carefully, exclaiming in soft delight at the scents, apparently pleased though he didn't seem to know these were longtime favourites. He thanked Remus, still wearing that offputting, too-docile smile.

Clutching the final gift inside its wrapper to keep for last, Remus patted his breast pocket and leaned forward to whisper conspiratorially, "They won't let me leave you the cigarettes, but I'd smoke one with you, if you like."

Gil smirked mischievously and nodded, and Remus brought out the packet of Gauloises he'd begged off Albus and lit a pair of them with his wand. He passed one to his old friend, smiling. He watched Gil take it and draw a drag, expertly enough. He didn't smoke like a boy trying it for the first time; the mediwitch had said he'd retained some knowledge of the world, some abilities he had learned. He hadn't been made a child again by what had happened to him--at least, not quite.

It did seem that his ability to cast, already impaired by atrophy, was now permanently disabled. The mediwitch had said there wasn't much hope that he would ever recover his magic, even if he was able to regain some of his memory. The bones of Remus' forearms had ached with sympathy on hearing that news.

"Is it nice here?" he asked lamely. "Do they--treat you alright?"

"Ah, sure, it's lovely," Gil said. "I had breakfast in the room this morning, and a walk in the garden after."

"That's good."

"It is," Gil said cheerfully. "And that fellow in the green robes has been about all morning. He's been very helpful every time I needed something."

"Yes," Remus said, "I imagine he would be."

"He says there's nothing at all to worry about," Gil said airily, waving his hand so that the smoke from the cigarette he held made an arc that obscured his eyes for a moment.

"He's quite right."

Gil nodded decisively. "Still, it has been a very strange day..."

Remus sighed. This was intolerable.

They smoked in silence for a short time, Remus waiting to see if Gil would say anything, Gil apparently content not to. Finally, he banished both their dog-ends with a spell and brought the last item out of the package.

It was a book of course, a large hardcover edition of _Wanderings With Werewolves_ with the jacket long gone so that it looked quite plain at first glance, a copy originally purchased by Albus. Their book. It was dog-eared and corner-folded, and when opened, it would reveal that Remus had filled every margin with notes: quickly-jotted corrections that quite changed what the text said, blocks of neatly-printed anecdotes filling the half-blank pages at the end of each chapter, personally-addressed missives that spoke to what had been hidden behind the whole-cloth protagonist they had made of parts of each of themselves. Tentative, he held it out to his old friend.

Gil took it and looked it over, wonderingly. He opened it and skimmed the notes along the side of one page. "I've never seen a book like this before," he said.

"I lost my memory once," Remus began. "Some of it, at any rate."

"Did you?" Gil asked. "Oh, I'm awfully sorry for you," he said, sounding genuinely sad about it, and Remus wanted to believe him, he truly did.

"Thank you," he said. He didn't want to say it was alright. "I've recovered now, mostly. I was able to remember some of what I had lost, because this book..." He reached forward and slipped his fingers round Gil's forearm in a gentle grip, an almost-intimate touch. "This book is about the time when you and I were friends," he said. "It helped me to remember that we were very good friends once--I think I remember that."

Gil was watching him now with boyish awe, almost like a lad about to ask for a first kiss, almost like a young man who remembered what he was. But not quite.

Remus cleared his throat, but he didn't look away from Gil's blue eyes. "The story has been changed some," he went on, "so it was a bit confusing to read it, but it did help. We did all this together, you and I. We saved that village together. And the parts about the narrator and the wolf-girl in Paris--that was you and I, really..." He squeezed Gil's arm meaningfully, searched his eyes for some indication that he understood what he was being told, but he saw none. "I've marked down the things I remember that happened differently to how the book says they happened. I thought that it might help you as well, to read it. I hoped that it might."

On the end paper inside the front cover, he had written much the same thing, addressed to _my dear_ and signed with _your old friend_ , so that Gil would still know tomorrow what the book was, how he had come to possess it.

"I was told that, someday in the future, if you're able to..." He trailed off, trying to think how to phrase it. "If you're able to spend some time here recovering, you may be allowed to live with a friend again, one day, instead of staying here. Would you like that?"

"I think that would be lovely," Gil said, enchanted, with a sweet smile. "I'd like us to be friends again, Remus."

"I'd like that too, Gil," Remus said, aware that it didn't matter, that this was a promise he could break with impunity, might be required to break. "But I'll be going away for a little while first."

"Will you?"

"Yes, I'll be-- It's a bit funny, actually. I'm taking your old job."

"My old job?" he asked, amazed.

"Yes, as a schoolmaster. At Hogwarts."

"I don't remember that."

"That's alright," Remus said again. "I understand." He realised he was still gripping the other man's arm. He thought of releasing it, so that he didn't scare him if nothing else, but in the end he didn't. "I'm helping Albus with something very important. I owe it to him, after what he's done to help the both of us. And I owe it to myself--to finish it, once and for all." He wanted to explain, but he didn't want to introduce the concept of false friends and the devastation they could cause to this conversation, considering their own convoluted history and Gil's precarious hold on reality. "I came to London to say goodbye to you. I'm leaving tomorrow," he finished.

Gil nodded vaguely. He blinked with confusion then, stared up at Remus with narrowed eyes--for a moment it seemed he might say something significant, something meaningful. But all he said was, "Do you have my cloak?"

Remus blinked, unsettled. "I'm sorry, no."

He nodded again, seeming unconcerned, or resigned.

"I'll come and see you again someday soon." Remus cleared his throat. "Perhaps by then you'll be able to come and stay with me, at my cottage--if you still want to, that is."

Gil smiled softly. "I hope so," he said.

Remus nodded. "Well, I suppose I should be going. I want to give you time to read that today, if you'd like to."

"Alright, only--" Gil stopped, looking worried.

"What is it?" Remus asked.

"I'm not sure why--only I feel like maybe I could ask you for a kiss?"

"I think so," Remus breathed, startled and hopeful, fingers tightening on his friend's arm. He half-stood and leaned forward over Gil's chair to press his lips softly, chastely, to the other man's. It was familiar, and yet it wasn't. It was a promise of more one day, and yet it wasn't: a love trapped entirely in the present, with no past and no future.

"And is that in your book, then?" Gil murmured when they parted.

Remus smiled down at him, nodded.

"I think maybe I'll miss you," Gil said softly. "I hope I will."

"I hope so too," Remus croaked through the break in his voice. He cleared his throat again and said, "Goodbye, Gil," for what would turn out to be the last time, though he didn't know it then.

_Five Years Earlier_

Remus was sitting at an outdoor table at a café in Bucharest in the spring of 1988, graving small, neat handwriting into a cloth-bound field journal with a cheap muggle-made biro, when he became aware of a presence standing over him.

He glanced up. The young man was handsome in an average way and blond, smiling charmingly, and unmistakably both a wizard and a fop by his dress. He wore tailored morning robes of fine dove-grey and lavender, and Remus' eyes lingered for a moment on the thick gold watch-chain that hung low above the stranger's flies before sweeping up again to meet his bright blue eyes.

"You look like a man with a story," the stranger said cheerfully to Remus in English, with an accent he could recognise as faux-posh thanks to his long acquaintance with the real thing. "May I?" he asked, gesturing to the seat across from him.

"Certainly," Remus replied immediately. He knew, of course, what the other wizard saw in him, wanted from him. He never _expected_ to be approached by well-off men who shared his tastes, but when it happened he rarely declined--he couldn't afford to refuse.

He had never quite _meant_ to make trade of himself. Looking back now with the clarity of hindsight, it was basically what he had done all those years ago in that expensive hired flat in London, really, if there had been no love there after all. He had fallen into it again occasionally, had found a few fleeting connections over the years that had offered undeniable benefits for a time, until the parties involved came to know one another too well and Remus inevitably had to pack a suitcase and head for the nearest border.

He had, gradually, even come to cultivate a look which hinted at what he could offer and to whom, while still showing what he would expect in return: neat, clean formal robes of the type that seemed perpetually just out of vogue with English wizards--though he hadn't been back home in years--originally of quality, but darned and threadbare here and there. Tidy hair styled in a flop that could obscure his features and hide some of his scars if he let it fall forward. A certain way of holding himself, of moving his slender hands and tilting his head and smiling slyly, which if he were honest was a pale imitation of a young, confident, and searingly-obvious Sirius Black--the man would never stop haunting him, it seemed.

And of course the thin, old-fashioned moustache, so obvious an advertisement of his taste that it was practically a shingle over a door. 

Altogether, the impression he gave was one of a shabby, dispossessed gentleman, clearly bent and perhaps on the edge of no-longer-young, made by fashion and grooming as nearly-anonymous as someone with his peculiar physicality could be. He'd found it a startlingly effective way to be offered access to hot meals and warm beds without trying, and he'd long since set aside his pride over taking money from friends.

The strange man seated himself across from Remus, smiling pleasantly, and waved down a pretty young waitress. He ordered himself an Orangina, and with a winning smile to Remus, added, "and whatever my friend here would like," in English.

Remus asked the girl for another Turkish coffee please in her own language and thanked her mildly, waiting until she had departed to turn his gaze back to the other man.

"Gilderoy Lockhart," the stranger said, extending his hand over the table. Remus took it and shook, firm but gentle, a little lingering. The name was vaguely familiar to him, though he wasn't certain why--surely, given the limited pool of England's wizarding blood, they had moved in the same or adjacent circles, perhaps had attended Hogwarts at the same time. The man seemed only few years younger than himself. They might have even met at school, and thought nothing of one another at the time due to the age difference.

Not that Remus thought that much of him now. The man wasn't his type: too flash, too foppish--downright smarmy, really. And he wasn't particularly drawn to blonds.

But it was what it was.

"Remus Lupin," he said as they drew their hands apart.

"So, Remus," the man inquired with a smug smirk though the menu was posted clearly, "how much does a good meal cost around here?"


	2. Bucharest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spring in Bucharest: a new affair, a test of courage, and a test of conviction.

A short while later, Remus lay flat on his back on a plush feather mattress in a fine inn, with his long fingers clutching at short blond curls as he thrust himself slowly, gently, into the tight space at the back of his new friend's throat. Things reached their eventual conclusion, and then Gil spat messily into the same folded handtowel Remus had availed himself of earlier, before he stretched out alongside him with a boisterous overperformance of a contented sigh.

Remus laughed at him a little, gently, to see if he could take it.

"It's been a while," Gil said, glib enough. "Merlin, that thing you did with your teeth--!"

"Just wait 'til you find out the things I can do with my teeth," Remus cracked, smiling sideways at the other man.

Gil laughed politely though he didn't really get the meat of the joke, of course. "Speaking of teeth, do tell me more about this werewolf book you're writing, it sounds fascinating!"

Remus' eyebrows leapt and he blinked, startled, but he recovered quickly enough, he hoped. "Er, no," he said, "It isn't a book--just notes, really."

"All the same, I'd love to hear more--I've never heard of anyone _living_ with werewolves before. It must have been positively wild!"

"That's one word for it," Remus allowed. "I might have said terrifying, but I was a Gryffindor, after all."

"So if it isn't a book, what are the notes for, exactly?"

"Just keeping track of my own research, I suppose," Remus said. He hadn't really thought much beyond recording his wanderings, the small clues and snippets of story he had gathered for years. He read back over them sometimes, searching for connections in scraps of near-forgotten lore. "I'm very interested in the history of lycanthropy--particularly its origins..." He trailed off, unwilling to articulate any more, even to himself.

"Why come to Bucharest? Wouldn't you find more werewolves in France?"

"A common misconception," Remus pointed out, rolling to face the other man and propping his head up on one hand. "There is a sizeable population there, but as far as anyone can tell, werewolves originated here, or near to here--our type of werewolves, at least. The population has always been very dense here, you see. There are reports going back many centuries. It's even said that members of some noble families from this area inherit the illness, or the curse, if that's what it is. Though I haven't been able to confirm that."

"So you just... wander about asking werewolves if they know anything about history? Because you're curious?"

Remus huffed a breathy laugh, shrugged the shoulder he wasn't leaning on. "Basically."

"And does that--work?"

"Not well," he allowed. "It is a species with many flaws, and a lack of continuity in progeny is one."

Gil regarded him with a curious, almost-surprised moue of interest, clearly not expecting so articulate a response from a paid conquest, and Remus looked away, a little embarrassed. He wouldn't normally discuss the matter so openly with someone who was so nearly a stranger, but he had to admit this young fellow was a bit charming after all when stripped down to bare skin and smiles, and he was apparently genuinely intrigued by the topic. It was a combination that had got him into trouble before, Remus had to remind himself.

He cleared his throat and went on, "I typically uncover much more in the way of personal anecdotes. I must have collected the life stories of dozens of werewolves by now..."

"You know, it _could_ be a book," Gil said, as if struck by sudden inspiration. "It's all about sensation, spectacle! People would eat it up back home if you presented it right, dramatised it a bit--maybe slip in a little love story," he added with a playful smirk as he gave Remus a soft goosing. "Monsters are very popular, you know."

Remus grimaced, his good humour somewhat deflated, and then he shrugged again and leaned up to help himself to a cigarette from the packet Gil had left on the bedside table. He lit it wandless with a spark off his long fingers, as Sirius had used to do before he'd got his first rune, and offered one to the other man.

"You didn't recognise my name, did you?" Gil asked in a smug-sounding voice, taking the cigarette in his fingers and holding it without lighting it. "You don't know what I do."

"Hm?" Remus hummed as he lay back again on the pile of down pillows, honestly not that curious.

"I'm a writer--rather a good one if the charts are any indication." He smiled, and uttered a soft sigh, and set his hand on the middle of Remus' chest, stroking gently down his sternum with the pads of his fingers, the unlit cigarette balanced between them. "I know what I'm doing-- _I_ was a Ravenclaw." He chuckled softly. "I could help you with the manuscript. If you wanted to stick around for a while, that is."

Remus frowned thoughtfully at the ceiling for a short time before he turned his head to meet his new friend's eyes. He smiled vaguely, bemused. "If I didn't know better I would think you were proposing a lasting arrangement already."

Gil smiled back at him, bright and guileless, and said, "Maybe I am."

"Maybe I'll consider it," Remus lied. Of course his mind was made up already, just as he had made his mind up right away to spend an evening with the flash fellow when he'd invited himself to sit at Remus' table. It had been some time since he had entangled himself in this sort of affair. It had been some time since he'd been offered the opportunity, frankly. Of course he wouldn't refuse an alliance with someone who wore expensive new robes and a thick gold watch chain, who could suck a cock like that and who said it pleased him to do so though he was paying for the privilege. Remus would likely have gone along for the ride for a bit even if he hadn't liked him--barring moral incompatibility or abusive tendencies, anyhow--but this charming young fellow was turning out to be better company than he'd seemed on first introduction.

"Yeh'll never get rich from it," Gil warned, finally letting his accent fall a little below the strict standard at which he had kept it so far, even during sex. Remus couldn't immediately place the broguey drawl half-disguised underneath, beyond that it was far north or west of his own. "Writing, I mean. Unless you're lucky, and likeable."

Remus laughed, loud and unfettered, as he sometimes did around close friends and people he trusted. "Unfortunately, I am neither of those things," he said when he recovered. "But I will consider it."

"I think you're likeable--so far, anyway," Gil said, his false received pronunciation now restored to its former glory.

Remus smiled, shrugged. "It's a matter of perspective, I suppose."

"Shall we order in to the room?" Gil suggested airily, gamely ignoring the one part he didn't find likeable so far.

"Oh, please, I'm starving," Remus said, truthfully enough. He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial murmur against the other man's ear. "But you can drop the posh act around me if you like. Just reminds me of school."

Gil heard the cheeky grin in his voice, and, laughing, turned his head to press a soft kiss to the corner of Remus' mouth. "Is that alright?" he asked a startled Remus then, earnest and wide-eyed, as if he'd surprised himself a little.

Remus slipped the tip of his tongue out to touch the scar that bisected his own lower lip, and then he nodded. "I think it's only the ones who still love someone else who won't allow that," he murmured, and then he huffed a soft laugh, just a release of tension, as Gil leaned in to kiss him again, sweetly, like a lover.

As it turned out, Gil was in idle residence at the inn where he had brought Remus for their first impulsive tryst, had been for some weeks. He said he had been laid low by a vicious bout of writer's block earlier that spring, and had sought the cure in travel as was his custom, touring the continent in search of a muse, or failing that a diversion--and he said he had found both in Remus.

That first afternoon, Gil had invited him to stay for a meal, for the night, and when they woke in the late morning, to stay again for breakfast in the room. He hadn't seemed to want Remus to leave, and so Remus had obliged him--and soon enough Gil had his lasting arrangement.

He insisted that his accent was real enough, that he had been so immersed during school and since that he was no longer fluent in the Irish language and had long since lost its accompanying twang, but he still slipped sometimes.

And Remus told Gil that the scars were from a bad splinching in his youth. He seemed to accept it for fact, and said convincingly enough that the ones across his face made him look dashing.

Remus found his new friend was easy to keep company with, for he could gab endlessly about his travels and his adventures, and he seemed to expect little in return beyond interested noises and impressed expressions. He discovered that he quite liked to pass an evening sipping fine spirits and smiling serenely at Gil's elaborate recounting of some wild tale, whether it was in their private suite or before a small, strange audience of wizarding expats in some too-pricey café or absinthe bar, and if he repeated the same anecdotes sometimes it was no less entertaining. When Remus occasionally volunteered a tale of some school-days mischief or of his recent itinerant misadventures, he was surprised to find Gil rapt, equally happy to receive a story as to give one, and that fact alone quite improved Remus' opinion of him.

It was early days, of course, and Remus was cautious with this new alliance, as he always was with these stilted and mercenarial affairs. There was usually at least one nasty surprise at the end of them: the discovery of a deceived wife, a blacked eye, some small evidence of dark practice which revealed a degree of incompatibility Remus couldn't ignore after what had happened back at home.

Or a full moon: one too many months in a row of too-convenient disappearances and too-coincidentally-timed injury and illness, horror and disgust written across a mouth he'd kissed when he confirmed a lover's suspicions by dragging himself bleeding back to their secret nest on the wrong date one too many times.

So Remus was careful to maintain a distance between them, to accustom Gil to occasional absence--moreso than he had been during other such dalliances, perhaps because their work together involved such frequent dwelling on the minutiae of werewolfery.

Some days, he spent with Gil, dining in finer cafés than the one where they had met, strolling through the wizarding shopping district, browsing bookshops and seeing sights before retreating to the inn to put quill to parchment together. More often he rose early and took breakfast in the room with his new friend before dressing and leaving a rumpled Gil in dressing gown and slippers to pursue his own interests for the day, for the evening, sometimes into the night. He had his own key to the room before the week was out, and Gil didn't mind when he took half-empty packets of expensive cigarettes or handfuls of spare coin away with him on these expeditions.

On these days, Remus lurked in bustling wizarding quarters of the city, people-watching, paying for sandwiches and strong, thick coffees with his lover's gold, recording observations and thoughts in his little field journal. Occasionally he spoke softly to some shabby fellow with a bad potion habit, or tailed a likely-looking vagabond for a while. He rarely ventured into the muggle districts of Bucharest unless he was following another of his kind, and never at night, for something was badly wrong there: the people looked poor, streetlights were left unlit, police patrolled frequently. It was easy enough for a wizard to keep ahead of muggle authorities when necessary--even a wizard with his disadvantages--but he still preferred to keep to the hidden areas of the city as much as he could in his covert pursuit of information.

He'd been avoiding direct contact with most of the werewolves that haunted the too-urban territory of Bucharest since his most recent return to the old city, but he had identified a number of them by the easy signs of their unconcealable lupine mutations, had located a couple of likely-looking places he believed to be hideouts or squats frequented by one pack or another. He was biding his time as he learned their haunts and their habits, hoping to engineer coincidental-seeming introductions to a few of the saner ones. He hadn't spotted any of the ones he'd known during previous stays here--he usually didn't. Most wolves didn't last long in a crowded city, even a city full of wolves, and even odds on whether they left it by fleeing to the wilds or by dying unmourned.

After about a week and a half of nights in Gil's big hired bed, Remus tailed a greasy-looking vampire who was tailing a couple of bedraggled wyfwolf whores, winding up in an abandoned-looking cemetery in the rain in the early hours of the morning. He scared the brute off without alerting the wolf-girls and then kept watch outside the crypt they'd holed up in until nearly dawn, in case more of either faction found the place, in case an opportunity presented itself to ingratiate himself with the girls, or with others of their pack, if they were a part of one.

He apparated back to the street outside the inn, soaked through and with nearly-purple circles under his eyes from exhaustion, once silver twilight broke the night and he felt the two wyfwolves would be safe from one danger, at least. When he turned his brass key in the old lock and slipped into the suite, he found Gil asleep in pyjamas and dressing gown, sitting up in an armchair by the hearth, with a copy of _Hairy Snout, Human Heart_ open against his chest--research for their collaboration, no doubt.

He shut the door and stepped quietly towards the other man, impulsively dropping to his knees by the armchair and clasping Gil's hand in both of his, leaning half over his lap and looking up at him. The chill and the wet woke him.

"Remus," he exclaimed, pleased. "I thought yeh'd gone." He fumbled the book off of his chest and set it aside on the hearthstone, cover facing down.

The werewolf shook his head. "Just working," he said. "I hit upon a lead last night." He patted the breast pocket of his overrobe where he had his little journal tucked.

"Look at the state o' yeh," Gil observed, slurring sleepily in the accent he claimed he'd lost and rubbing at his own shadowed eyes.

Remus cocked his head, gave his new friend an appraising look. "Will you draw me a bath," he tried, a cool and casual order.

Gil smiled, stretched his arms over his head, and said, "Sure, d'yeh--" He yawned and started over, all poshed-up again. "Do you want breakfast? I'll floo up the kitchen."

"Please," Remus said, with a satisfied smile.

Gil stood and stretched again, and padded into the bath to start the tap for him by hand.

Remus soaked in water that was almost too hot until the food came, and stuffed himself with boiled eggs and a sort of porridge and telemea and rustic bread, and then he fell into Gil's big downy bed and slept for several hours. When he woke, it was afternoon, and he was alone. His friend had gone out, but a large, plain rectangular box sat propped in one of the armchairs by the hearth, and when Remus opened it he found a fine cloak in deep sage green, not nearly flashy enough to be a part of Gil's wardrobe and too long to fit anyone but himself.

When Gil returned that night, bearing a bottle of Calvados and an assortment of expensive coloured inks which he claimed would help to organise their manuscript but which Remus suspected he'd simply taken a fancy to, neither man spoke of the cloak, but the next day, Remus wore it when he left to retrieve his small suitcase from the left luggage office at the train station where he'd lodged it upon his return from his most recent excursion to the countryside near Bistrița some weeks ago, and Gil smiled indulgently at the sight of him sweeping the expensive wool onto his shoulders.

In the following days, Remus was more liberal in his lifting of the coin that Gil always scattered carelessly upon the bureau top when he undressed, and he didn't eat as many sandwiches during his daytime wanderings, instead accumulating a small cache of gold in the pockets of his overrobe and trousers.

After another week, of course, came the real test.

Remus left his suitcase conspicuously unpacked, left his new cloak hanging on the back of the door to their suite at the inn so it wouldn't be damaged. They ate an early supper together, a rich and tangy soup with vegetables for Remus, a traditionally prepared chicken in a creamy paprika sauce for Gil, and a little too much white wine for both, at a small restaurant which would have seemed far too civilised to have a werewolf in it just hours before the moonrise if it were any other city, and then they walked back to the inn together in the orange glow of sunset.

He'd felt the aura of it all day, a little dizzy when he turned his head too fast and hard to shift the focus of his eyes quickly, too-hungry and too-irritable, and he'd bit his own tongue a dozen times this evening to stop himself snapping at his friend.

Finally, at the rear entrance to the inn which they typically used rather than risk being seen going through the front door together, Remus stopped and asked Gil for a cigarette, and once he'd lit it he nodded towards the door and said, "Go on, I have something I've got to do."

Gil regarded him with something like curiosity or suspicion, but there was some other undefinable thing there that was somehow familiar to Remus, something bright and pleased behind his blue eyes. "Will you be back tonight?" he asked.

"I'm not sure," Remus lied. "It's for the book," he added, truthfully enough, since he and Gil had both had werewolves on the brain for their shared work, and it would be too convenient for his clever friend to have forgot the date.

"I do hope you're coming back," Gil said lightly, with a trepidatious smile, and Remus realised why his new friend's expression was so familiar: it reminded him of Sirius, of course.

"I always plan to," Remus said, a little grimmer than he'd meant.

Gil couldn't kiss him in parting, not on a duskening backstreet in the middle of a crowded foreign city, but he looked like he wanted to, and Remus took that for what it was worth. "Well, goodnight," Gil said, absurdly like the awkward end of a bad date.

"Goodnight," Remus told him. "I'll see you tomorrow," he admitted, turning away.

"Remus," Gil said then, his voice hesitant.

Remus half turned back to him, regarded him over his shoulder. "Hmm?"

But his new friend choked under his gaze--he shook his head and said, "Nevermind. Do be careful."

The werewolf nodded, curt, and turned away again, setting off at a brisk pace without looking back.

Once he was out of sight of the inn, Remus ducked through a secluded alley to give himself cover, and by the time he had emerged on the next street over, he had slipped a large potion-bottle from where it was concealed in the pocket of his robe, downed its steaming purple-blue contents quickly, gagging a bit at the hot, thick taste, and dashed the empty bottle to shards on the cobbles to destroy the evidence.

He'd used Gil's coin to negotiate the stuff out of the hands of a half-elf apothecary who serviced the more desperate and disreputable sectors of the wizarding population in the city. After his last supplier had dried up, he'd had to go without for a while, and he wouldn't have known about this diminutive man in his understreet shop if he hadn't tailed another werewolf to the place earlier that month. The scarred old wolfman had had gnarled, broken, pawlike hands and one badly-crooked leg, finally healed wrong after too many transformations, and the sight of it had made Remus' oft-broken marrowbones ache with sympathy. A part of him hoped oftener than he cared to admit that he wouldn't live long enough to see in closer detail the things that happened to old werewolves. He usually tried not to think of it.

He retraced his steps now to the deepest depths of the disused cemetery where he'd spent half a night guarding oblivious wolf-girl whores, undressed with little fuss and concealed his clothing in a broken sepulchre, and crouched silent in a bank of overgrown hedge to wait for the moon.

He managed not to cry out, in part thanks to the potion and in part thanks to long practice holding himself to gruff silence through both torture and ecstasy--no longer did he wail like a tormented spirit with every change, as he had when he was a boy.

It was a trade-off, of course. Transforming with the potion was a hundredfold worse than without it, for he was forced to remain aware, to catalogue in his lucid human mind every ripple of muscle and tearing of skin and breaking of bone and unbuckling of tendon and ligament, to watch his own hands become weird, long, pawlike talons, to feel the shapes of his wolf-limbs and his wolf-teeth and his wolf-cock locking around his human soul, to inhabit his wolf-body as if it belonged to him. It hurt him terribly, physically and psychically, and the blessed oblivion of unawareness never came. He had felt far more like a dangerous monster during the times in recent years when he'd had access to this potion than he ever had as an idiot boy sneaking off to the woods for a rollicking blackout with his mates. In some ways, he hadn't felt like a proper werewolf at all until he'd first tried it, hadn't known the horror of what he was firsthand.

But what the potion bought him, the leash of sanity on his beastly body and true peace of mind when he returned to himself, made it well worth the horrific price.

After he changed, he huddled aching and trembling inside the hedge for some time, waiting and listening and inhaling the miasma of Bucharest's wizarding district, alert for any sign of the two wyfwolves he had encountered, or of other werewolves.

An hour passed, then two, and no such sign came. Finally, he slipped out from his hiding place, careful to go on four limbs like a dog though he could go on two just as well. His paws were silent on the soft, lumpy grass of the graves as he moved between the trees and the headstones, slinking stealthily along the ground until he came to the place where a wrought-iron fence separated the cemetery from the street and the walkway alongside it. He paced along this fence, barely concealed from the glow of the streetlights and the occasional late pedestrian, until he reached the gate he had come through as a man only hours before.

He lifted a hind leg and pissed against one of the stone pillars that anchored the gate to mark it with his strong male scent, before slipping out of the safety of the graveyard into the city.

Many hours later, Remus staggered bruised and shivering into the inn, up the interminable wooden steps and down the too-long corridor to Gil's suite. He fumbled his key into the lock and pushed the door open, and found his friend seated at the writing desk by the window, half-buried in notes and drafts of scenes that needed to be placed in order, and trying hard to slip his specs into the breast pocket of his dressing gown before Remus noticed them.

"You're back," he exclaimed, pleased, as he turned towards the door. When he laid eyes on Remus this time, his smile fell away. "Merrlin, are you arright?"

Just before dawn, Remus had padded on silent paws back through the cracked stone endcap that gave entry to the sepulchre where he'd hidden his clothes. He'd changed in gruff silence again on the cold marble floor of the small underworld room, dragged his clothes mostly-on again, and laid down in a heap, curled against the central tomb. The air was chill and heavy with the sweet, earthy scent of the long-dead, and Remus had pressed silent tears away from his eyes with the heels of his hands for some minutes before sleep had taken him. He knew very well he looked exactly like a man who'd followed up two traumatic experiences in one night with crying himself to sleep in a crypt.

"Don't hit your ahrs like that, it gives you away," Remus said fondly.

"Any leads?" Gil asked.

Remus shook his head and dropped himself into one of the armchairs by the hearth, rubbing at his eyes and his scruffy growth of beard with long fingers. "There was no sign of them last night. The whole city was quiet." As it should be--a population of werewolves under control would all be secured somewhere far from the public or drugged back into their heads and equipped with enough good sense to hide. Paradoxically, it was a good sign.

Gil nodded absently, turning back to the parchment he'd been rereading. "I was thinking, it might make more sense to rewrite a few of the Paris scenes and use them as a single arc instead of placing them chronologically. We don't want to confuse the reader about why the narrator keeps going back there."

Remus nodded. "Whatever you think is best," he allowed.

"Do you fancy a bath?" Gil asked, turning back to Remus again.

Remus smiled at his new friend, pleased. "I'd love one."

Gil nodded, but he didn't get up right away. He bit his lower lip and looked concerned. "Remus," he began, hesitant. "If you ever need anything... if you need, say, more gold for--for any potions or anything... you've only to ask."

Remus was too tired to formulate any sensible reaction to this offer that could probably really only mean one thing, that Gil had guessed the truth already and didn't hate him for it, but it made a mad hope swell in his chest that he hadn't felt in years. He kept his face neutral and nodded, curt. "I know," he said. "You've been very kind," he added after a moment when he realised the response had been too brusque.

Gil nodded. "I mean it, though. I'd hate to see you injured, or--" He stopped abruptly.

Remus cocked an eyebrow. "Or bitten?"

Gil pursed his lips. "I'd hate to lose you," he said, frank. He looked away from Remus, awkward in his admission, and then he stood to cross into the bath, to draw the water by hand again. "At least not until the book is finished!" he joked lamely over his shoulder.

Remus huffed a breathy laugh, weary but in good spirits now that he had found his way back to something like a home.

Over the course of the next several days, Gil made no demands of Remus, and Remus went to bed for far longer than he ordinarily would after a full moon, caught up fast by many months of cumulative exhaustion and feeling more secure in this place with his new friend than he had anywhere in years. He slept for two days and two nights, waking only to wolf big plates of room service or to stagger undressed into the bath to relieve himself, carefully avoiding the mirror in case it showed him anything he didn't want to see.

During this time, he was dimly aware of Gil's presence as the man moved quietly about the suite, or as he slipped out with a click of the key in the lock, or as he clambered carefully into bed with him for the night. Gil wasn't a tall man, but he had a sturdy frame and compact, square muscles under the pad of selkie-like fat that softened their definition--he felt heavy and strong when one was in bed with him. Remus was aware of curling fevered and half-asleep against his broad chest, of reassurances murmured in a soft slur that must have contained at least a few illicit Irish words he didn't know, of waking to a gentle touch on his brow with a tray waiting more often than seemed reasonable to his sleep-addled mind.

Finally, in the early afternoon of the third day, he woke feeling as if it might stick for a while, with joints sore and swollen from disuse and a cockstand that felt as if it could put a centaur to shame. He sat himself up on the edge of the bed and took stock of his body and his surroundings for a time, elbows on knees and head down, and then he dragged Gil's favourite lilac dressing gown off the bedpost and onto his own bony frame, slipping his arms through the silky sleeves but leaving it open around himself.

Because of the nature of their arrangement, Remus was not in the habit of initiating intimate encounters--and, curiously, Gil didn't seem a very passionate man, for one who'd installed a piece of trade in his hotel suite--but he found he couldn't resist offering his friend the opportunity, at least. He padded in this state of half-undress to the front of the suite, his prick bobbing in front of him as he moved, and found Gil sitting at the writing desk in his pyjamas and specs again, scribbling untidy notes in red ink all up and down a page Remus had penned some days before his illness.

Gil heard his soft footfalls and turned in his seat. "Feeling better?" he asked lightly, forgetting to hide his glasses.

"I must have caught a chill," Remus lied despite that it was late spring. He stepped closer.

Gil reached out for his hand and drew him close, and in a moment Remus was mildly startled to find himself settling familiarly on his friend's lap, one arm drawn over the other man's shoulder and round his neck and his with face leaning down into blond curls. He was too tall for this, if not too heavy, but Gil didn't object.

"Merrlin, just the sight of you like that's got me half-stiff," Gil murmured up into his neck, slipping a hand between his belly and Remus' hip and into the waistband of his pyjamas to adjust himself. "Do you want me to touch you?" he asked then.

"If you want to," Remus demurred coolly. He felt Gil's fingers curl around him immediately, warm and firm and slow, and he sighed with contentment as his friend stroked him. He soon felt the other man humping insistently against his hip; he turned a little, unhooking his arm to push his hand into Gil's pyjamas and offer him the same. It wasn't long before Remus was slipping his other hand over the tip of his own prick to stop himself spilling over the fine cloth as they both shuddered through an inoculative dose of death together.

"God but you're an impressive man," Gil said soft against his shoulder, giving him a firm squeeze to indicate his size and his vigour.

Remus sparked a quick cleansing spell between his palms before he clutched at his friend's wrist and pulled his hand away. Gil let him, but he threaded their fingers together instead. "I'm not, though," the werewolf blurted, impulsive. "You have guessed, haven't you? That I'm--not a man." He tugged the dressing gown closed then, to cover his anatomy.

Gil looked away, guilty in a charming, boyish way, like he'd been caught with his hand in the biscuit tin. "The scars aren't from a splinching, are they?" he said, not really a question at all. He didn't untangle their fingers.

"I'm sorry," Remus said. He stiffened, and he might have got up to pace and pack his things and flee, but Gil tightened his arms around him and he let himself be held still. "Don't make me say it."

"If you don't say it," Gil reasoned aloud, meeting his eyes again with that curious, optimistic expression he might have borrowed directly from Sirius, almost as if he was _excited_ by the prospect of a beast in his bed, "then I technically don't know it."

Remus' breath left him in a huff. That mad hope was swelling in his chest again--all he'd ever really wanted out of life was one halfway-decent person who was willing to have him despite what he was, who was strong enough, powerful enough--rich enough if that was what it took--not to be hurt or ruined by it. He'd fought a whole damned war over it, over letting people love unsuited candidates if they wanted to, and yet he still felt unqualified. He thought maybe he always would. "Do you still want me here?" he asked in a rough voice.

"Better here than--what, out in the forest somewhere?" Gil said, stricken, petting his hair. "Is it always as bad as that?"

"Not always," Remus said honestly. "I've--had a rough few months. I needed the rest, badly. Thank you," he added, "for--"

"Wsh," Gil hissed against his shoulder. "Don't thank me fer bein' decent," he said, dismissive, momentarily dipping into his missing accent again.

"Is it really alright?" Remus murmured, pulse fluttering wildly in his throat.

Gil looked past him at the notes on the writing desk, seeming to consider, and then he said, "I don't think we ought to make the protagonist a werewolf--they'll take it more sympathetically back home if the narrator is an ordinary wizard. And the conflict does make the love story more compelling. We'd have to scrap a lot of what we have if we changed it now."

Remus nodded, blank-faced and anxious. 

"Speaking of the love interest," Gil said, "Are you married to _Selene_ for the wolf-girl's name? It's just a bit on the nose, isn't it?"

"What? No, no." Remus cleared his throat. "It doesn't matter to me."

Gil nodded. "Nor me," he said, though it didn't follow his argument. Then, quite a firm end to the matter, he said, "Do you feel like going out?"

"In a bit," Remus allowed, feeling that normalcy had been somewhat restored by the talk of their book, "if you want to. I need a bath and a shave first."

Remus and Gil settled into their routine together again. They never spoke of the wolf in the room with them any more precisely than they had that afternoon, and that was fine with Remus. He continued to vanish without explanation on occasional nights, perhaps once a week or more, and he usually found his way home again in the early morning, slipping exhausted into Gil's bed to find the comfort of a warm, strong body and a contented sigh awaiting him. Perplexingly, his friend seemed more charmed than ever, again increasing the allowance he left scattered on the bureau for Remus without a word about it and bringing more small gifts and luxuries back to the suite to share with him--though he didn't ask for anything more than he usually did, still seeming perfectly content with a charmingly-boyish mutual stroke or a quick blowjob a couple of times a week, the only acts they had negotiated ahead of time.

As the days passed, it became apparent that what Gil really wanted wasn't sex. He did ask Remus to satisfy his appetite, but what he longed for was an intimate companion: a smiling face at table, a clever ear for his jokes and his often-obtuse prose, a hand to clasp and a warm body next to him when he slept. Remus was happy enough to oblige, dropping casual touches on his arms and his neck, sitting close enough that they could lean into one another while they worked, fixing a reassuringly-devoted gaze on him whilst they were out and about. Remus found that Gil rewarded him as generously for this illusion of romance as he did for more prurient pursuits--though he would have done it anyhow, for he wanted the same. It would be a lie to say that Remus only took gold from these arrangements, and he was continually surprised at how well this particular one seemed to suit him.

If he were honest, Remus would have to admit that this life he had fallen into with Gil was a bit like being back in school, with Sirius: sneaking in and out of their room together past the landlady and the neighbours, staying up until the wee hours scribbling impassioned notes about their shared project, bathing together and eating sweets in the room and indulging in all the little treats his rich friend's gold bought and in all the nostalgically-naughty schoolboy favours Remus could offer to repay him. Gil's faux-posh even improved under his patient coaching--Remus liked Gil's real accent, but it seemed Gil didn't, and Remus held himself ready to serve his friend in whatever capacity he wished.

Sometimes Gil copied a turn of phrase or a gesture that Remus hadn't realised he'd copied from Sirius, and it put him so in mind of old days with an old friend that he would often decide impulsively to go out for the day rather than think for too long on those times, if only because he was tempted to remember parts of them fondly again.

On the evening that would become the night of the first new moon after Remus' half-articulated confession, Gil had casually called him _darling_ \--though it had to be an innocent coincidence, for Remus was careful never to allow that word to pass his own lips due to its camp connotations, let alone the black associations it bore for him. An hour or so later the werewolf had found himself eating falafel wrapped in flat bread on a street corner near a busy market that stayed open late, eyes alert for silver hair or yellow eyes or too much scarring or facial hair, or men who towered over the crowd or who stooped their necks trying not to, like himself, or anyone who stepped only on the balls of their feet.

He popped the last of the sandwich into his mouth and turned to drop the paper in the bin behind him, and was startled to see one of the two wyfwolf whores he had first encountered nearly a month ago now, passing only feet behind him. He'd have missed her entirely despite how close she was if he hadn't turned at just that moment.

He let her pass, casting his eyes about for the other, but he didn't see her. After a moment, he began to stalk after the wolf-girl, casual and from a distance on the crowded street. She stopped at a market stall and he heard her speak softly in Romanian to the old woman running it; she gave up some coin and came away with two small round buns wrapped in white paper. 

She turned abruptly then and retraced her steps, coming straight back towards him. Stoic, Remus showed no reaction, staying on his course and letting her walk past him again, only turning to follow her once more after stopping briefly to pretend interest in a vendor's wares.

She left the market and slipped silent through emptier streets for a while, and Remus let the distance between them lengthen until he realised she must be headed back for the cemetery. He ducked through an alley again and took a parallel path, turning a corner some minutes later just in time to see her slip through the old iron gate with the package of food clutched against her bosom.

He stopped where he was and leaned against a wall to take out a cigarette, lighting it with his fingers cupped around it to hide that he used magic, in case any muggles were about, and waited to see if the girl was being followed by anyone else.

He knew from long experience in spycraft that it took between six and seven minutes to smoke a cigarette at his usual pace, and he guessed from the path the girl must have taken that if no one appeared in that time then she'd have lost any tail she'd picked up in the jagged streets and cuts of Bucharest. He snubbed the cherry out between his thumb and forefinger and dropped the dog-end on the cobbled floor before he crossed to the gate and slipped through it himself.

He made his way to the large crypt at the back of the plot where the girls had hidden themselves that first night, when the vampire had followed them, eyes and nose and ears alert all the while. The grated gatelike door was intact, but the lock had been keyed with its latch out of its housing, so that the door wouldn't shut fully and couldn't be secured from inside or out. Remus could see a faint light from within the crypt, as from a candle, and could hear soft, feminine voices murmuring intimately inside: both wyfwolves were safe within.

He put a hand up to the door, but then he thought better of it and drew it back. He slipped away from the crypt then, feeling strangely frightened and unsure why. He patrolled the graveyard thoroughly, until he was sure it was empty of any threat. Though he felt a bit disgusted with himself he undid his flies then and pissed again, this time upon the corner of the small, low sepulchre nearer the centre of the plot where he had hidden himself during the full moon.

He headed back to the inn on foot to give himself time to think, though when he arrived he found he hadn't managed it very well. When he entered the suite he found Gil still awake, munching liquorice allsorts in bed and reading pulpy smut with an inaccurately-illustrated merman on the cover.

"Hullo," Remus said as he laid his new cloak on one of the armchairs, feeling awkward and agitated for no reason he could name. "What are you doing?"

"Working, obviously," Gil said brightly, still chewing. "Do you want some?" he asked, holding out the brown paper package of sweets as Remus stepped closer.

The werewolf huffed a frustrated breath, only realising as he exhaled that his breathing was too-fast and his face was hot and his eyes must have been dilated. "I want something else," he rumbled impulsively, already toeing off his shoes and undoing his robe.

Gil smiled, surprised, and set his book aside, unhooked his golden wire-rims from his ears and set them casually atop it, no longer trying to hide them. "Come, then," he said with a smirk, pushing the bedclothes aside to make room for Remus, to reveal that the merman had him hard-up already, stout and ruddy and bullish against his belly. The werewolf finished undressing in short order and surged eagerly into the warm bed with his friend, spilling the liquorice pieces across the duvet as he loomed over Gil and took him in hand.

Over the next weeks, Remus went out alone more often. He found his feet retracing the path to the cemetery near-daily. He hung about near the gate, smoking and watching the people who passed, and the things that passed that weren't people. He saw the wolf-girls again occasionally, and kept out of their sight, or tried to. He thought he caught the darker girl watching him from across the rows of graves once, half-concealed behind a scabby-looking spruce tree, and promptly took himself away without looking back to check if he'd really seen a figure there at all.

He stroked Gil off in the bath, lit his cigarettes, poured his wine and his tea. He felt restless.

He felt the way he had used to feel back at home, during the war, when he had been mired in doublethink by Sirius, by his friends, by the pull of the wild werewolves. Back then, he had turned tail, run from everything he wasn't held to by his obligation to his old headmaster, unable to face the changes happening in all of them, in himself.

He'd been a coward.

He was determined not to run this time, or maybe he was determined _to_ run, into Gil's arms, away from what his blood and his crackling bones and the bastard moon wanted so badly.

Gil might have noticed his unrest, or he might have been distracted by the werewolf's sudden enthusiasm for their play; Remus found it more difficult to force himself to remain a docile and submissive pet. He tried--and mostly succeeded--never to be rough or to demand more than his friend had arranged at the start of their affair, but his true appetite had been reawakened. He spent it eagerly on Gil, trying not to think of why his passions roiled so high, but day after day he found himself passing the cemetery, telling himself that he was concerned for the girls' safety, that he would please his friend by rooting out their secret story.

But with the moon approaching soon, it was hard to maintain the cognitive dissonance.

Story of his life.

Remus sighed and pushed open the door to the understreet apothecary.

"Be with you in a minute," the small man called from under the low counter, where he had his head and shoulders buried in a large crate. The man's familiar, a battered-looking leucistic corvid, screeched warningly at Remus from its perch by the old till.

Remus thanked him mildly and busied himself examining the plant specimens hanging in glass spheres in the high half-window, amusing himself by identifying each one without checking its little parchment tag. Only a few evaded him, and these he tried idly to commit to memory as he waited.

Finally, the half-elf popped up from behind the counter. "Now, what can I do for--" When Remus turned away from the window, revealing his scars and the feral curve of his spine, the man's face became closed off and cautious. "Ah," he said, curt. "Seven gold."

"I beg your pardon?"

"You're here for wolfsbane again, aren't you, English? It's seven gold pieces--I don't mind if they're foreign as long as it's wizard gold."

"Last month it was only five," Remus pointed out.

"That was last month," the wizened little man croaked. "Demand's gone up." He held his hand out. "You have it or not?" The pale crow bristled, puffing its feathers defensively.

Remus nodded, fumbling in a pocket for a modest handful of coin. He counted it out in his palm and turned his gaze to the other man, expectant and untrusting.

The half-elf narrowed his dark eyes and brought a bottle out from a lockbox under the counter, setting it before himself and not taking his hand off it. Remus gave over the coin, and then, eyes still narrowed, the apothecary released his grip on the potion so he could pocket it.

"Thank you," he said, curt.

"Never trust a werewolf with spare gold, Atticus," Remus heard the little man mutter to his bird as the door swung shut behind him.

This time, when Remus slipped wolf-shaped out of his sepulchre, he caught an immediate and compelling whiff of cunt that shot into the back of his brain and made his wolfhood twitch powerfully in its sheath, though it made him ashamed.

The wyfwolves were back--but where had they gone?

He sped straight to their larger crypt at the back of the cemetery with bounding leaps and no real plan, and he instantly regretted it, for he'd dashed straight into a wolf-fight.

There were only two of them, besides himself, and it took him a moment to understand that it was only the wyfwolves scrapping between themselves, surely undosed. His blood ran cold at the thought of the havoc they could wreak in the city, at the burden of responsibility placed on him by his tenuous hold on human sanity. He would have to play the dog himself tonight, or know that he had risked letting wild werewolves loose in the midst of wizarding Bucharest.

The larger one had fur the colour of cinnamon and a heavy build, the smaller was silver and willowy with delicate paws. They broke apart, snarling, and Cinnamon was briefly distracted by Remus' unaccountable appearance, turning towards him with clear alarm in lucid golden eyes.

There was a moment of eye contact between them, and a clear and startling understanding passed to Remus, but in the next instant Silver was bounding down the row of graves, making to leap past him to freedom, to innocent victims. Cinnamon moved, not fast enough, and Remus could do nothing but gather his legs under himself and spring at Silver, tackling her to the ground under himself with his teeth half-sunk to pinch painfully at the scruff of her slender neck without drawing blood.

Cinnamon's hackles rose and her eyes grew panicked as Silver yelped under him, and for a breath Remus thought she might attack him to free her companion. But she watched carefully, and when she saw he only held Silver still, made no move to harm her or to mount up as a wolf-minded beast would, she seemed to relax.

Cinnamon pointed with her muzzle and her eyes towards the front of the cemetery, then towards the large crypt where the two girls often concealed themselves. Her meaning was clear: get her inside before she's seen, before she can escape.

Remus nodded, absurdly humanlike considering his teeth were still slaver-wet in Silver's fur, and shuffled his long limbs over her wolf-body until he could tug her towards the crypt. Cinnamon moved close and pushed at her slim companion with one red shoulder to help him move her, and Remus felt Silver relax somewhat in his grip at the contact though traditional wisdom said she shouldn't have been aware that it was her friend shoving against her.

The door was a challenge. Cinnamon stood up on two legs and pulled it open wider with her weird long paws as Remus backed in, dragging a now-submissive Silver after him by her scruff. She loomed in the doorway, looking conflicted, and Remus saw the problem: the only way to secure the miskeyed door was for a heavy weight to be pressed against the outside. She must have been lying against it to keep her undrugged companion safe, and she didn't want to leave Silver alone inside with a strange male now.

Remus whined and gave a jerk of his head which he hoped indicated to come closer. Cinnamon approached and he loosened his jaws to show her he would release them. She nodded and laid herself down directly on top of Silver, inelegantly smashing the leaner wyfwolf onto the marble floor below her.

Remus released his aching jaw with a soft whuff of pain. He sighed then, weary, and stood to cross to the door on his two hind paws, hunchbacked and digitigrade-legged. He pulled the grate shut with the paw that was sometimes his wand-hand, summoned all the discipline and power he had managed to scrape out of the bottom of the barrel of his elite education, and, though it hurt the hermetic nerves in his forelimbs dreadfully, cast wordless and wandless a swift spark of _alohomora_ and then another, tugging the door properly into its jamb between the two spell-surges so that the simple mechanical lock was secured. He turned his back to the door and dropped into a round, canine heap in front of it, meeting the astounded eyes of the cinnamon-furred wyfwolf with earnest exhaustion.

The night passed slowly. Remus slept fitfully just inside the door to the crypt for he had nothing else to do, woken occasionally by the girls snarling and scrapping, by mournful howls from Silver--and once by the boff of a paw against his nose as Cinnamon dashed past her friend, trying to distract her from worrying at the latch with her teeth. He felt rather like an abused schoolmaster by the time a bluey light cast itself in through the grate of the gatelike door, warning them of the moonset barely in time to prepare for the pain.

He was aware of the bonebreaking agony as he changed, and of endless-seeming hoarse feminine screaming from a single voice, coloured more by fear and horror than by pain, though he couldn't have said which of the wolf-girls it was. He wasn't aware of much else, though, and he wasn't aware of the transition from the twilight wakefulness of transformation into sleep this time--a sure sign of substandard wolfsbane, though the price had risen.

When he woke he was wildly disoriented for a long moment. He found himself utterly naked on a floor which was hard marble, though it wasn't cold for his flesh had warmed it. He had a woman feverish-hot in his arms, pressed so intimately against him that he could smell and feel all of her secret places, and his prick seemed to have been let in on that information sooner than his brain, for he swelled against her thigh already, his body wanting without his permission. She had dark red-brown hair cut in a messy crop, and she wore the graven look of a girl who'd been plump all her life until sudden hardship had melted her fat away, leaving sturdy muscles and still-loose skin to reveal how recent it must have been. A stained cloak covered them both, and a heap of dirty-smelling feminine clothing made them a pillow. Another woman, bony-slender from years of it like himself and with shocking long hair too white and too fried for her age was leaning down over him, drawing the cloak back enough to slide under it as well, slipping a leg over his, too-familiar.

He half sat-up, trying to take quick inventory of his memories, but he was still wolf-fogged and sleepy-stupid and hungover from his low-quality dose, and he found that this improbable scene still made no sense to him. He tried to query the silver-haired woman in the rough, croaky voice that was all he had left to him on mornings like this, but as he opened his mouth she fell against him, sighing, slender arms around his neck, trying to kiss his slack lips.

The muscles along his back jerked with sudden, instinctive alarm and he came fully awake then, shoving her off of him as the memory of the previous night came into focus. "What are you doing," he said in English, more an accusation than a question, as the red girl woke muzzily beside him.

"You're the one who's been protecting us," Silver said in Romanian, almost a canine whimper. "Aren't you?"

"No, I've been following you," Remus ground out, though in the strictest sense it was a lie--he had been doing both. "Get off me," he said, firm, pushing her arms away when she tried to embrace him again.

"We don't have any money," Silver said, an assertion which seemed absurdly off-topic to Remus until he realised what she must have thought he was, or was trying to be. "We spent everything we had for the potion and we could only get enough for one this month," she babbled, "but I promise we can do better--"

"Stop, I'm the same thing as you," he said. "Only a bit luckier." He wasn't sure if she understood that he wasn't referring to the lycanthropy, but he hadn't the heart to clarify.

Cinnamon was quicker on the draw, or less desperate; she sat up beside him and reached past Remus to lay a quelling hand on her friend's arm.

Silver turned frightened eyes on her red-haired companion, and then the girls were wrapping their arms tight round one another over his lap, Cinnamon petting Silver's hair and shushing her as she trembled.

Remus extricated himself from the midst of their embrace, sliding backwards to lean against the door with the soiled cloak over himself, and looked away, rubbing at his eyes and his scruffy growth of beard with long fingers. "Fuck," he said softly to himself in English.

"Will you let us out?" Cinnamon asked him after some minutes, looking up at him over Silver's shoulder with big eyes that could _almost_ have been a natural shade of amber-brown. She was the one he'd followed in the street that night, when she'd brought a meagre supper back to eat here in a grave, the one who'd spotted him watching them. He saw for the first time she must have been quite young, too young for at least some of what had happened to her, if not all of it--much as he had been, once. "Please?"

And then he remembered the door.

He nodded, weary. "Will you go and fetch my clothes, please?" he asked her, voice gentle. "They're in the small sepulchre in the third row with the broken endcap."

She nodded, reaching into the pile of clothing for a simple white dress. He watched dispassionately as she teased it open, found the front, and stretched her arms over her head to slide into it. Her breasts, too small for her frame now, rose proudly on the motion of her pectoral muscles, as if her body could be anything other than a shame and a burden to her now.

"Can't you open it yourself?" Remus asked, an afterthought, as they stood together on noodly-feeling legs.

Silver dissolved again into silent, shaking sobs on the floor where Cinnamon had left her.

"Our wands were taken," Cinnamon said simply. They must have both been turned quite young and cast out of wizarding society before their power was fully developed, to have failed to learn wandless casting in time to keep some magic to themselves. There was likely nothing for it at this point; without anything to attune their power as they grew into it they might have both been irrevocably squibbed by now, as so many young werewolves were. He guessed that Cinnamon's illness was more recent than Silver's, though they seemed near the same age and Cinnamon seemed to be handling it better.

Grim, he wondered if Silver had infected her friend, if she suffered more from guilt than from the curse.

Remus had long told himself that if he ever found himself in that position, he would end his own life. It had never before occurred to him that to do so would strand that friend alone with it in a world suddenly turned against them. He wished he could say the realisation steeled his courage.

He waited, silent, watching Silver wipe at her messy tears, while Cinnamon slipped out of the crypt and away.

He wanted to say something comforting to the girl, but he couldn't think of anything that wasn't a lie, and he didn't want to attract her half-demented attentions again. He wished he had a dose of medicinal chocolate to offer her.

When Cinnamon returned with his clothes bundled neatly against her front he dressed quickly, facing away from the wolf-girls, though they had both seen and even pressed themselves against everything he had already, a reality of their condition that had long since become boring to Remus. He wasn't sure how accustomed the girls were to it.

He rifled through the pockets of his robe and his trousers, finally coming up with a handful of Gil's coin, all he had left after paying for his own potion this month--enough for a few days' worth of hot meals, or enough to improve their standing a little, if they used it well.

For a moment his hand lingered on Sirius' ornately-engraved little knife. They needed it more than he, but in the end he let it rest where it had lain for years, inside his left front trouser pocket, where he could feel the weight of it against his leg.

He pressed the gold firmly into Cinnamon's hands though she objected.

"Listen to me, both of you," Remus said then, lowering himself to a crouch to speak to Silver as well. "Go to a bathhouse. Get yourselves something nicer to wear. Something outdated from a secondhand shop will do, as long as it's clean and class--and take care of your hair. You want to give the appearance of a person of quality who is recently down on their luck." Silver seemed shell-shocked still, but Cinnamon was listening closely, nodding along. "You only want to work during the day. You want idle men, not labourers, and _never_ muggles--trust me, you can love whomever you like, but trade in your own world or you never know where you'll end up, especially in a city like this. And stay away from procurers, it's never worth it. Go to fine hotels, if they'll let you in. Walk confidently. You've a right to be there, the fact that you haven't any money at the moment isn't a concern. If they won't let you in, hang about at cafés and things near them. Only offer yourselves to well-dressed wizards who wear gold: watch chains or signets. You know what a signet is?"

Silver nodded now--if he was any judge she was originally of breeding, with her fine bone structure and her graceful bearing. If she could pull herself together she might be able to move in that world again, to carry her friend with her.

"Good. And get hold of a wand somehow, if you can. You may still be able to train yourselves a little," he said carefully. "While you're young."

The two exchanged a determined look, as if they had already discussed it, as if he had renewed their hope that it was possible. He hoped it wasn't a lie. He knew Cinnamon had a better chance at it than Silver.

"The most important thing is to stick together," he told them, and Cinnamon nodded up at him with wide golden eyes, clasping her friend's limp hand tightly. He had already guessed at their affection for one another, of course--there but for the grace of whatever looked after werewolves went himself and Sirius, he knew. "And for gods' sake if you can't get the potion," he added, his voice urgent, "get out of the city. Walk if you have to." He stood then, and turned to go.

"Wait! How do we find you?" Cinnamon asked.

Remus shook his head. "Please don't."

"Werewolves sleep in places built for the dead," Remus dictated to the automatic quill two days later, "because no one else will have them."

"Over."

"What?" His eyes had drifted to the window above the writing desk, but he turned them back to his friend now with a mild frown.

"Give it a bit of dark humour, lighten the mood." Gil said. He tasted the revised sentence on his tongue consideringly, looking like a connoisseur but for the cheek of his grin. " _Werewolves sleep in places built for the dead because no one else will have them over._ "

Remus pursed his lips, shrugged, shifted in his seat.

Pacing, Gil scritched a note in purple ink and flipped a page. "Well, we'll put a pin in that one."

"I don't want to stay here any longer," Remus blurted, moody and impulsive.

Gil stopped his pacing and looked up. "Oh?" he said, sounding genuinely hurt. His eyes flicked quickly to the bureau top where his specs and his pocketwatch and his wand were laid by when he wasn't dressed to go out, perhaps to check if he had been neglectful in his duty of leaving gold there for Remus. "I thought this was working--"

"No, I mean I don't want to stay in Bucharest any longer."

"Didn't you want to interview more of the local werewolves?" Gil objected, puzzled. "Find the story here?"

Remus shook his head. "If there's a story here I've enough of it already."

"Did something happen? You've been positively morose ever since..." Gil trailed off, not wanting to mention the moon by name.

"No," Remus said, and then, "Yes." He ruffled his hands through his hair and turned to the window again, staring out at the melty patterns the rain made on the lumpy old glass. "Nothing happened," he said at last, "but it might have, if I hadn't had the potion, or if it hadn't been effective--or if I had lost control of myself in a more mundane way." He huffed a bitter laugh. "Or if any number of other things had gone wrong, really. I can't stay here any longer. It's too dangerous being in such a crowded city, with so many werewolves."

"So you've made up your mind?" Gil asked, edging towards the bureau. "You're definitely leaving?"

He turned back to the other man, met his eyes with a defiant glare and a snarl-like cant of his lips. "Are you a traveller, or aren't you?" Remus put it to him like a challenge.

Gil smiled, surprised and pleased again by Remus' initiative. "Sure," he said, suddenly seeming excited and mischievous, like proposing a plan to a schoolboy companion--he would have made a fine one if they'd been the same age, Remus thought, not for the first time. "And where do you want to go?" Gil asked.

Remus hadn't yet considered that. Their collaboration, or their affair, or his employment, however one wished to view it, had gone on for nearly three months now. They had met in the height of spring, and now it was true summer here in the crowded, smelly city. Remus had become accustomed to moving frequently and now when he stayed in one place for too long he felt restless, trapped--often more by the things he feared he might do than by muggle authorities and pack politics.

There were places he tended to return to, to begin again when he had worn out his welcome with the wolves or the wizards in a particular locale, or when a dalliance like this ended, leaving him adrift. Bucharest, the capital of werewolfery as it was known across wizarding Europe, had been one such place--though now that he had risked such dangerous entanglement he was unsure he would ever return again. The homey comfort of the Yorkshire countryside had been another retreat, in his youth anyhow, as had London, but he figured it was better to stay away from the Isles altogether these days. In truth, he was running out of places he knew well, but he still had one safe haven that it seemed everyone had forgot about entirely.

"Can't you guess?" he asked Gil with a smirk.

Gil considered for a moment, and then his face brightened. "Ah--back to Paris again, like our dear narrator?"

Remus smiled, grateful to have found himself a clever and intuitive friend again, and nodded.


	3. Transcontinental

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The long journey to Paris: Remus flirts with danger, meets a scoundrel, and comes to a decision.

They took a series of slow and grotty little muggle trains over the Carpathians and the Alps to avoid detection by wizarding authorities, who tried halfheartedly to track the movements of werewolves in some of the countries they would traverse. Gil found this form of conveyance a downright delight, not least because his carefully-selected robes, dun with accents of mauveine piping on the day they departed Bucharest and bottle green with golden art deco embroidery the day they were to arrive in Paris, attracted many alternately admiring and puzzled eyes. His travelling clothes, finer even than his flashy daily-wear, made him the centre of attention even in the wizarding world. In the muggle world he seemed a circus in himself, drawing stares and speculation as to his means and the career or title that granted them. He might as well have been a foreign prince from some exotic land, and he flourished under it, striding puffed and proud like a peacock, winking winningly at strange women and flirting indiscreetly with strapping young porters.

Every bit of this nonsense suited Remus perfectly, for Gil drew all eyes and all thought conveniently away from the tall, scarred fellow in the drab green cloak who walked beside him.

The longer this went on, Remus mused over cheap tea in a paper cup, the better suited they seemed.

A curious shift had occurred in their relationship, if that was what it was, around the time Remus had announced his intention to leave Bucharest. He couldn't put his finger on it, for nothing tangible had changed. Gil had still left gold on the bureau for him in the few days it took to pack up their effects and arrange transport, and over the course of their voyage he developed the habit of slipping coin into Remus' hands when they dressed in their compartment, ostensibly in case he cared to use it for pocket money when the train stopped to exchange passengers at anonymous and unseasonably snowy ports-of-call. But they had left some of the mercenarial awkwardness behind them in that quaint suite. Remus felt that they treated one another more as true friends now than as what they'd started. They had joked and laughed together easily enough from the beginning, but at some point it had become comfortable and familiar rather than tentative, and they even teased one another a bit sometimes. It was becoming easy to forget the ignominious way Gil had first approached him.

It might have been wishful thinking, of course, but it felt more than half a match to Remus. For the first time in years, he felt some hope that an affair might not end badly.

Being away from the tailspinning influence of the wyfwolves and the various vicious packs that secretly stalked the old city, on a grand adventure with his eminently-civilised friend, Remus felt himself a proper wizard, a proper human again. It didn't hurt that the full moon was still weeks away and he was sleek with the weight he had put on from following along with Gil's questionable diet over the past months.

He had a little packet of what he thought were shortbread biscuits and a bar of dark chocolate on the bolted tabletop before him with his tea, and he tugged at the strange clear wrapping of the bread with nimble fingers, trying not to draw attention to himself with the crinkling of the material.

A _smack_ of a newspaper hitting the small table in front of him startled him, though he tried not to show it. "Whatever that says isn't good, is it?" Gil said, seating himself across from Remus with a flourish towards the paper, which featured prominently the word _vârcolac_.

"Quiet," Remus told him in a low voice, peering down at the headline of the local wizarding paper. The text was printed in Romanian, as they hadn't crossed the border into Hungary yet, but soon they would move out of one area where Remus could communicate fluently, and they wouldn't enter another for some time. They would both be tongue-tied tourists for some days, relying on the overlap of their English and Remus' French and Romanian into this mountainous country. "We'll have to switch trains," Remus murmured after scanning the details in the article. "We'll meet our bags again in Vienna."

"It leaves in twenty minutes," Gil complained.

"Well then, we'd better go and pack up our compartment." Remus slipped his snacks into his pocket and gulped his tea. "Come along."

"The good news is, I found real gin," Gil said, holding up the bottle he'd tucked under his arm.

There were two berths across from each other in the private compartment Gil had arranged on this second train, each too narrow for two men to occupy together, and so late on the second night of their voyage, some hours before they were due to arrive in Belgrade--the more direct route through Budapest being unwise because of the recently-announced crackdown on dark creatures in Hungary--Remus heard his friend murmur from across the small chamber, "Are you awake?" He could hear the grin in Gil's voice. 

"Mm-hmm."

"Get it out then," Gil said--somehow the purring suggestion fell short of an order. "I want to look at you."

Remus cast his gaze over to the other berth to see his friend had pushed the downy white linens away and cocked a knee up to show himself in the slowly strobing pale blue light from the lanterns beyond the train's windows, a fist around his stout cock and a smirk on his lips. Everything swayed softly with the movement of the train, and the half-drunk gin on the railed sideboard sloshed rhythmically inside its bottle, catching glints of silver moonshadow across its surface. It was hypnotic, boatlike. 

Feeling drunk from the spirits still and near-giddy with nerves from the thrill of their illicit voyage--or perhaps more from the thrill of the heartfluttering realisations he'd been having lately about the other man--Remus pushed his own bedcothes away and shoved down the striped pyjamas Gil had bought him before they'd embarked, so that they tangled around his calves. Without preamble, he scooped a hand under his ballocks to lift them up, to present his own anatomy against his thigh, and with the other he fondled himself, squeezing his flesh sternly to show his friend the heft and the thickness of it as he hardened.

His big prick was the one part of his body he felt he could reasonably be proud of, most days; the small noises of appreciation and arousal Gil made in time with the show he put on gave him gooseflesh and made him feel like a boy hiding in a curtained dormitory bed with a too-close friend again.

And here was another realisation. He'd thought it a dozen times, without being able to put the point to it, really: Gil made him feel young again. Merlin, but the boy was only, what, four years younger than he? But then Gil had missed the war.

"If you wanted more," Remus breathed, unprompted, "I'd give it to you."

Gil uttered a small, pleased grunt between panting breaths, but he seemed too far gone to give any sensible answer.

Remus stared hungrily at his friend, holding himself at trembling attention until Gil finished with a deep, shuddering sigh, and then he tightened his grip and sped up his pace, pressing his length against his abdomen at the end so that he spilled in thick spurts onto the smooth delta of his solar plexus.

Gil slurred a string of foreign words at him all made of susurration and brogue, this time certain sure the illicit language he said he'd lost in childhood, and stretched a hand out over the narrow aisle that separated the two berths. Remus smiled crookedly at him and reached out with his own long arm to meet him, barely able to hook their fingertips together across the space between them.

Remus was dressing alone in their still-swaying compartment the next morning, the bright sun glinting off distant rivers that showed like veins under the forest far beneath the wooden frame along which the train crept, when the door was wrenched quickly aside. Gil slipped in and closed it behind himself, looking alarmed--he had left for the dining car only minutes ago, and Remus was to meet him there soon.

"What's--?"

"Aurors," Gil cut him off in a hiss. 

"On a muggle train?" Remus asked, disbelieving.

"They're dressed as police, but one of them has a wand out. They're asking for papers--do you have a muggle passport?"

Remus huffed a startled breath of a laugh. "Of course not."

"Merrlin," Gil swore, slipping a hand into the breast of his robe. 

Remus was about to say, "Let me do the talking," though he had no plan, but then there was a loud, authoritative double thump upon the thin sliding door.

Gil moved to open it, and Remus half-turned back to the window and continued to button his overrobe, trying to look unconcerned and to keep his scarred and distinctive face out of view.

"I apologise for the interruption, gentlemen," the uniformed fellow drawled in Romanian. "We're approaching the border, just checking tickets and passports."

"Oh, I'm dreadfully sorry," Gil said in English, "but I don't speak your language." With his body half-hidden by the door, he indicated with one hand a pile of parchment which lay past Remus on the railed sideboard, notes for the book scritched onto receipts and scraps mostly, and made a beckoning gesture with a nod of his head. "Perhaps you could help us--?" 

The Auror stepped fully into the compartment, already looking suspicious of what were clearly rich foreign wizards travelling incognito, but bound doubly by social grace and by Gil's polite and inquiring tone.

Remus took a deep breath, fingers tightening on his wand inside his pocket as he formed a wild, half-cocked plan of stunning the fellow and, what, stealing his uniform? Climbing onto the roof of the train? Merlin, wouldn't be the first time, either way. But before he could move he saw a bright flash from Gil's golden-red wand, which he had drawn out of his robe with a flourish, and to his shock Remus felt a sparking reverberation through the air and in the nerves in his forearms--weak, unattuned, but unquestionably resonant. Had Gil really never cast in front of him before? But he had no time to consider this revelation. Remus turned to find the Auror standing at prim parade rest, looking confused.

"What was I doing?" the fellow asked, still in his own tongue, the question addressed vaguely to the room.

Remus glanced first at Gil, who shrugged, helpless to complete the spell when he couldn't communicate with the victim. Remus nodded his understanding and said calmly to the Auror in Romanian, "You've just done an excellent job of checking our very ordinary papers, and you were about to report to your superiors that this car is clear of whatever it is you're looking for."

"Of course," the fellow murmured, nodding to himself. "Of course... Yes." He trailed off, looking almost stoned, and turned to go.

Gil slid the door closed behind him and shot the latch home before he turned and leaned back against it, eyes wide and brows up.

"Somehow I don't much feel like breakfast any longer," Remus joked, with the barest huff of a relieved laugh in his voice.

"Feckin' borrder warrds," Gil cursed Irishly. "If we could just apparate..."

"I imagine they're only checking the Romanian borders," Remus said. "They get a bit overzealous about it sometimes, because of the werewolf population." He nodded at Gil's wand, still in his hand. "That's a handy trick for a couple of fellows like us to have up our sleeve, by the way."

Gil nodded, uncharacteristically grim. "It's the one thing I'm good at," he said, shocked into honesty. He gazed baffled at his wand for a moment as if he didn't recognise it before slipping it back into the breast of his robe.

"I could never quite get the hang of that one, myself," Remus said, stepping closer and fixing his fingers in the coral crepe of the other man's sleeves, above his elbows, like holding on to another swimmer in a tide.

He regarded Remus with a curious expression, a concerned frown. "One has to... really mean it--mm!"

Remus had leaned down to cut him off with an impulsive kiss, closed-mouthed and celebratory, born of relief rather than desire. A curious thing, for what he was. He pulled away before Gil could respond or not, only to find him smiling bemusedly.

"Well, how about that?" Gil said, almost to himself.

Remus slipped a hand into a pocket of his overrobe, coming up with the snacks he had forgot about yesterday in their hasty switch of lines, and grinned gamely.

So Remus set a ward around the boundaries of their compartment, no easy feat on a moving target, and then they packed up their things and made a jolly enough breakfast of the chocolate and a nip of gin and what turned out to be a savoury, crispy sort of wafer that was quite nice even if it wasn't shortbread, with Gil's expensive cigarettes for afters. They left the window forced open wider than it ought to go the whole time in case drastic measures were called for in escape after all, and the cool Carpathian air whipped in to ruffle their hair and pink their cheeks like lads on a ski holiday.

Uneventfully they crossed out of Romania and into Yugoslavia, a country which was busy enough with its own affairs not to notice a couple of unwisely-wandering wizards. Bypassing the muggle authorities was laughably easy once one had crossed the border wards, and no Romanian Aurors patrolled for escaping werewolves here. Gil had agreed easily enough that it would have been wise to don his most subdued attire for this leg of their journey--but of course their bags were speeding through Hungary without them, and aside from the fresh shirt and vest and drawers and socks he'd carried in his small hand valise to change into in the compartment, he was helpless, trapped in his flash coral crepe. He had briefly suggested finding a tailor's while in Belgrade. Remus had given him a demented and disbelieving stare as they strolled together through the train concourse, and no more had been said of it.

Gil deferred to Remus' experience as they deciphered the departures board with its unfamiliar Cyrillic text, as they clumsily conveyed their desire for food to an old woman who sold them sandwiches that Remus turned out not to be able to eat owing to a queer pink meat paté concealed within, as they traced out the route to the platform they sought on a too-precise green map which stood in a monolithic glass case in the centre of the station.

In short order, Gil's gold had bought them another private compartment on a far grimier and ricketyier class of train than the last, which was quite paradoxically modern in character despite its already showing its age in dirty corners, cracked upholstery, and small mechanical failings. But such was often the way of muggle engineering.

Neither man felt comfortable in these surroundings. They holed up in their compartment with the last of the gin and chocolate and cigarettes and their manuscript, which Gil carried in the hand valise he always kept with him, only emerging for wretched rations from the dining car and trips to the lav, or the head, or whatever one called it when it was on a train that looked like a submarine. The single night they passed in their separate berths was chilly and sleepless, and the electric lanterns were left on in the corridor outside their compartment for the convenience of other passengers, who stepped noisily past them all night. They dared not undress fully or pursue any pleasure. Remus found it, bluntly, the least pleasant time he had ever passed on a train.

Finally, weary and hungry, they disembarked in central Vienna in golden evening light, with some sixteen hours to kill before they were due to depart for Switzerland. Gil looked a touch deflated and his coral crepe was crushed in places, but he seemed in good spirits still, particularly now that they had come to a place where he had holidayed before.

Remus would have been happy enough to wait at the muggle station, resting fitfully on a wooden bench and dining on what concourse fare he could again, but Gil returned from the baggage check with one of his many trunks and a plan. Soon Remus found himself riding placidly up in the mirror-walled lift compartment of a nearby palace of a hotel his friend knew from a previous stay in the city, exchanging glances which were by turns measuring and sly with the young bellboy who had charge of the brass luggage cart.

When the lad's palm had been gilded enough to gloss over their indiscretion and the door shut behind him, Gil collapsed dramatically onto the large four-poster with a groan and a squeak of springs. "Let's just live here for a while," he sighed with exaggerated lassitude.

Remus pursed his lips, cleared his throat. "Gil, I..."

"Hmm?"

"I know where to get wolfsbane--in Paris," he said.

The other man sat up on the bed and cocked his head attentively, a little frown creasing the spot between his brows as he understood the problem.

"It isn't safe to stay here long," Remus explained, hesitant.

Gil nodded, looking troubled. "We've plenty of time," he said. "It's barely been a week."

Remus nodded, though it had been a touch longer than than, in fact.

"What do you do if you can't get it?" he asked, wondering for the first time, apparently.

"If I can, I lock myself in someplace where no one is likely to go. If I can't manage that, I... Well, a couple of times, I've had to go to the wilderness and hope for the best." He hesitated, aware it made him sound careless--it made him feel careless, despite the protection offered by what he carried within the small suitcase that had once belonged to his father. "I do try never to go without it, if it's at all within my power." He looked away then, suddenly feeling guilty.

"Ah," Gil said, enlightened and maybe disappointed, as if he'd just figured the answer to a riddle that had been vexing him and he wasn't sure he liked it.

Remus watched him from where he stood by the door for a moment, silent, and Gil watched back. It seemed to Remus that each of them was adjusting his evaluation of the other, and he didn't like it much.

Had the other man been _too_ convinced by the appearance Remus had carefully cultivated? Had Gil thought him a libertine by nature, Remus wondered, a scruffy, errant heir of wizarding society who whored for sport, or to spite a fine family?

Was that what he had _wanted_?

It didn't bear consideration, so Remus put it sternly out of his mind.

Soon, Gil stood and crossed to his trunk, frowning thoughtfully as he went. "Let's go downstairs and eat anyway, they do a lovely service here."

Remus nodded, unburdening himself of his cloak and moving to help his friend with the trunk.

"I'm dressing," Gil commented, prim. "I do hope the lilac silk is in this one."

After the soppy admission he had murmured from his solitary berth that second night of the journey, Remus had half expected a buggering on the floor of the train compartment before they arrived at their next port-of-call, had been half looking forward to it, really--it wouldn't have been his first choice, but he liked it well enough. But Gil hadn't made a move, seeming evasive, almost uninterested.

It might have been simple distaste for the messiness of the act--Remus had known such men before. It might have been that Gil, too, wanted to forget about the mercenarial aspect of their relationship as much as he could, and the thought of negotiating a price for it when they hadn't spoken of such things since the beginning put him off. 

Remus had meant what he'd said, that he would _give_ more if Gil wanted it--providing of course that his friend was still willing to support him--but he wasn't sure it had come across.

And sometimes, Gil would blush or demur at an unexpected moment, and it made Remus wonder if he might have lacked experience in anything beyond what he had already bought. To Remus' thinking, it was unlikely for a wizard of Gil's age and means and character not to have made a man of himself yet, one way or another--but then it had probably been equally unlikely for two boys with rare tastes to have been made housemates at a school that had taken on fewer than forty new students that year.

Remus had long told himself that if he hadn't been placed with Sirius at that crucial time in life, then he would never have been able to take that leap, would have lived out the rest of his accursed life believing himself--or alleging himself--to be a fully-heterosexual man who could never have had a woman-- _should_ never have had a woman--a monster, destined for a solitary life. 

He'd probably been lying to himself, really. He would probably still have come to another man's bed eventually, and considering how the last half-decade or so had gone he would probably still have been forced to trade. Not as if someone like him could have done so with women--he put that thought sternly away from himself. His curious flexibility was probably set deeper in his nature than a lot of things about him, and a fairly large part of him knew it by now--but he also knew it would have been tenfold more difficult to find a likeminded companion and to find his own courage if they hadn't coincidentally been shut up in a dormitory together every night for years. It had been difficult enough as it was.

It hadn't turned out to be _good_ luck, exactly, but it was some sort of luck, and it was easily possible that Gil hadn't had the same.

Remus pondered this as he lay sprawled on his front in the big four-poster, half-awake in the light of morning and pretending not to be so that he could savour the warmth of the bed and the smell and feel of the clean linens on his skin and Gil's comforting weight against his side. 

There would be no lazy lie-in today: soon they would have to rouse themselves and return to the station. They had stayed up too late last night, drinking too-sweet wine amidst the ruins of their meal in the hotel's dining room, smoking and laughing and exchanging entendre until the conçierge had approached and politely suggested that they might be more comfortable in their rooms as service had ended some time ago. Gil had compensated the man generously for the inconvenience and ordered another bottle to the room. They'd gone up in the same lift with the same bellboy then, again giving them looks that said he knew what they were up to.

Remus had found the lad's shamelessness less charming this time, perhaps because it had occurred to him that the bellboy might have recognised Gil from his previous time here, might even have ridden up with him in Remus' place once.

It _was_ his place, now.

They had continued the party upstairs, sipping their Riesling on the balcony together for a while before Gil had murmured a soft suggestion, and then, drunk and a little giddy, Remus had found himself on his knees under the stars with his friend in his mouth. They were mostly-hidden from the city around them by the solid stone balustrade that ringed the balcony and by the close, high walls of the hotel, but it wasn't impossible that someone looking out of a higher-up window somewhere might have caught a glimpse.

To his surprise, Remus found he didn't care about that at the moment, didn't care about the irritating familiarity of the bellboy or the conçierge's mild disapproval or even the distance he still had to go to ensure he would have wolfsbane when he needed it next--the feel of that thick, bullish cock between his teeth and filling his mouth was all he could bring himself to care about. Was it the wine? He couldn't wait in case the other man wanted more, couldn't resist undoing his own flies and fetching himself off roughly as Gil panted sweet affirmations and wound his fingers in his hair. 

He had come quickly, and quietly, and hard, with his friend still thrusting into his mouth, and soon Gil had followed with a groan he'd muffled in his palm. Drunk and unprepared, Remus had swallowed his seed for the sake of expediency before realising it was exactly what he'd wanted to do anyhow.

Thinking about it now made him achingly-hard against the soft featherbed, made his throat tighten involuntarily around his breath until every exhalation was a near-inaudible sigh of desire. Somehow, by slow degrees, Gil had become a lover to him, a true friend who could spark true passion, even to the point of his spells resonating up Remus' nerves--something that had never before happened during Remus' time as a desperate renter, unless one counted Sirius.

It was a strange contradiction he didn't know how to face, like an addiction to a drug that made him sober.

He didn't want to keep taking his lover's gold. It was becoming more and more difficult to make himself defer to Gil, to give the value of power to what the other man had bought. He couldn't have afforded to refuse, to insist on a more equal relationship, for he couldn't have contributed equally--and he didn't dare hope it would occur to Gil to renegotiate their situation when what they already had seemed to work well for him. He wanted what he'd had with Sirius: a real affair, or a more convincing illusion of it if that was what it had been, with a man who just happened to be generous.

Perhaps he could dare to hope that, if the book did well, Gil would consider his contribution to it as value added.

A woman in this position--a woman, not a wyfwolf--might have hoped to be made a mistress of, or even a wife, considering Gil's common origin. But then a healthy, normal woman could have offered something worth far more to any man than the gold to pay her own way. Again, Remus put this sternly out of his mind.

He thought briefly of the two wyfwolves, now far distant and beyond all help. Had they taken his advice, he wondered, and could it have helped them? Or had they simply fed themselves well for a short time and continued on their downward trajectory? He wouldn't have blamed them.

Beside him, Gil sighed, sounding disappointed, perhaps because he could sense that Remus' amorous mood had passed. "It's time to get up, I suppose," he said, fully-lucid like he'd been lying awake musing to himself too. He stretched and rolled onto his side to face Remus. "Let's get this over with, I hate second-act doldrums."

"Do you, though?" Remus asked, amused and bemused both. "It seems as if we spend a lot of time on them."

Gil laughed merrily and kissed him. "Shut up, you," he said, fond.

It was shortly after their arrival in Lucerne that Remus had his first real inkling of Gil's fame. They were to stay the night at a mountain lodge near a wizarding village not far from the city, which Gil had asked him to arrange by owl post from Vienna before switching to their next line, but when they strolled into the lobby together, the conçierge stared startled, murmured something urgently to an underling, and dashed from his station to meet them halfway to the desk with an obsequious half-bow. "Mister Lockhart," the man said in accented English, "I must apologise, sir--we weren't told to expect _you_." He gave Remus a dirty look then, mistaking him for a clerk or a valet who had neglected his duty. "We're preparing our best suite now."

Remus didn't think much of it at first, assuming Gil had been a holidaymaker here before and as generous then as was his wont, but as the fellow went on it was clear he was familiarising them with the lodge's amenities, as if recommending the place to an unfamiliar critic, or to a king who might deign to grace them with his presence if everything was to his liking.

Remus gave Gil a measuring look as the conçierge explained the three dining rooms and the hours of their various services, and Gil gave him a guilty grimace in return.

"Did you _really_ not know I was famous?" Gil asked with a smirk some minutes later, over hot chocolate and lingonberry tarts in the second of the three dining rooms, as they waited for their suite and enjoyed the sweeping view of the steep-sided valley which the lodge overlooked.

Wheezing lightly with laughter, Remus shook his head and waved a slender hand, dismissive. "I haven't been back to England in--four years? How was I to know?" 

"I thought yeh were just so cool butter wouldn't melt!" Gil yelped, laughing again now. "'I'm a famous author!' 'Oh are yeh now? Well that's nice, how 'bout supper?'"

"Would you have wanted me to know?" Remus asked, grinning.

"I'd swear I told you," Gil chuckled. "Hang on, does this mean you've never read any of my books?"

"I--" Remus made wide eyes at his friend, caught out. "You told me that you were a writer, not that you were a _celebrity_!" he accused.

"Well, you didn't tell me about _your_ \--little problem," Gil said, giving him a pointed look.

Remus blinked down at his chocolate. "Hunh," he said. "Fair play." He sobered then, pensive. "It will be much more difficult for us not to be noticed, you understand."

Gil nodded, already equally aware of the problem. "Yeh, why do you think I went to some godforsaken place like Bucharest for it?" he asked with a smirk.

"Hunh," Remus said again. "Well, in that case, I'm rather glad _I_ went to Bucharest," he said after a moment, again directing his attention to his tart as if it were the end of the matter.

Gil regarded him with a surprised smile.

The last leg of their journey took them into France, down out of the Alps and through the sweeping hills of the river-coursed countryside, past little villages and swathes of farmland. Passing through this familiar territory again felt almost like a homecoming to Remus, for this was one of the many parts of the world where his small and itinerant family had stayed when he was a boy, during his parents' years-long search for an impossible cure--the search which Remus could never quite bring himself to admit he was still carrying on.

Sometimes he thought of giving Gil this part of the tale, as well as he could remember it anyhow, but in the end he always thought better of it. He didn't want pity, whether from his friend or from the audience that Gil assured him would await their book when it was finished.

Gil had never asked how he had come to be a werewolf. He must have assumed Remus had been infected as an adult, already a trained wizard, perhaps already a beasthunter with a curiosity on the subject. His friend might have even regarded it as Remus' own fault, a natural enough outcome of such curiosity combined with his Gryffindor daring. Under those assumptions, the story seemed almost unremarkable.

He wasn't certain how accurate his impression of that time was, in any case--in the haze of childhood understanding, now clouded further by unreliable memory, it had been impossible to understand what he had become, what had been done to him and what was being done still. The painful illness and the various terrifying treatments for it had blurred together for some years, seeming one and the same. At the time he had been aware only that he was gravely ill, and that it distressed his mother terribly and kept them from their home. Now, coloured by hindsight and adult knowledge, the story seemed far worse than it had at the time: his mother's mad desperation driving them forever onward towards stranger and more sinister mages and fouler-tasting potions, his father's grim guilt and the strain it had placed on the couple's eventually-doomed love, the dark cant of many of the spells and rituals to which Remus had been subjected.

Sometimes he felt quite guilty, that his condition and his parents' preoccupation with it had prevented them having any more children. Despite both their flaws, he couldn't help but feel they had deserved a fair chance at viable progeny.

He put it out of his mind, though, for tonight would be last of their journey: one final night in separate swaying berths, and then they would arrive in Paris.

This train was easily the most luxurious so far. Their compartment was larger, with wider and softer berths, a small sink for convenience in grooming and refreshment, and--though they were unlikely to be harassed as this was a country somewhat more blasé in its treatment of lycanthropes--a more secure latch on the door. The menu was appealing, and both men were in good spirits and quite hungry by midday, so they had set themselves up for the time being in the dining car with a section of their manuscript. After the meal Gil had commanded tea service and an assortment of small pastries to sustain them as they proofed Remus' heavily-revised retelling of the encounter with the two wyfwolves in Bucharest, which by now seemed far longer ago than it had really been.

They kept their voices low and spoke unspecifically where necessary, so as not to draw attention or alarm those muggle passengers who might chance to overhear them and to understand their tongue--much of this part of the tale was mundane anyhow. After some time, though, Remus noticed a man sitting alone at a nearby table, nursing a few fingers of some brown liquor and stealing surreptitious glances at them. His hands shook. He had the makings of handsomeness about him, but he looked tired and bedraggled, and though his clothes were fine they were ill-fitting. Thick threads of stark silver ruined his careless mop of black hair, covering perhaps a quarter of his scalp though he seemed near Remus' own age. The fellow tried to hide the greying and to make himself look older with a side-parting and a trilby that didn't suit his hairstyle, and he hadn't any of the more extreme mutations that would indicate long years of transformations, but the signs were clear enough to Remus.

He cleared his throat and pursed his lips at Gil, and in answer to his friend's enquiring look, he scratched out quickly in the margin of his draft, _Don't look--we're being watched._

Gil cast his eyes over the note, and then he looked back up at Remus with a small, sly grin that seemed somehow equally excited and trepidatious.

 _To your right,_ Remus wrote. _The man in the hat is a werewolf._

His friend immediately turned in his seat, obvious as anything, and Remus froze with chagrin--but then Gil swept his gaze convincingly past the stranger and raised his hand to signal the waiter, surreptitiously getting an eyeful as he made a show of his feigned helplessness. "Garçon!" he called imperiously with his exaggerated faux-English inflection, and Remus had to think quickly as the lad approached, dropping his teaspoon onto the floor behind the cover of the tablecloth so that he could politely murmur in French a request for a replacement.

When that was over with, the strange werewolf still watched them covertly from under the brim of his hat, apparently unaware he had been made. Remus fixed his eyes on the parchment in front of him, cool, and kept the fellow in his peripherals.

 _Should we go?_ Gil had written on the reverse of the outline he'd been studying.

Remus shook his head no almost imperceptibly. "I want to finish my tea," he said, casual but steely. It was the truth, but he had to admit the stranger drew his attention almost preternaturally. His sudden appearance boded ill to Remus. Some instinct or intuition made him itch to uncover whatever the fellow was up to. It was a feeling he had experienced before--far from every time he'd encountered another male werewolf, as a less experienced lycanthrope might assume, but often enough that it was remarkable. It made him feel stubborn, territorial. He wondered if it was a base instinct of the species to find certain individuals so threatening, so compelling, or if it could perhaps be his own genuine intuition, his subconscious drawing connections to patterns he had noticed before.

He had certainly seen enough of his kind up to no good by now that he ought to be able to spot any commonalities that existed.

He watched Gil's hands absently as his friend fiddled with the tea service, carefully keeping his own eyes off the reflective surfaces. Finally, he realised that Gil was positioning the silver teapot so that he could see the stranger's image in it at a glance, without turning. Remus smiled at his friend, genuinely impressed, before he turned his attention back to their prose.

All three gentlemen--if indeed any of them could be called gentlemen--remained in the dining car for another hour or so. Finally, the black-and-silver stranger stood and slipped away as silently as he might, behind the distracting cover of a group of holidaymaking Scottish witches who asked autographs of Gil. 

Impulsive, Remus murmured to his friend under the din of the ladies, "Meet me in the compartment," and stood to follow the stranger.

He waited in the vestibule at the end of the dining car until the fellow had passed almost through the next car before tailing him, and waited again in the next vestibule, and so they carried on through the train until Remus saw the other werewolf vanish into one of the single private compartments which were pricier than the one Gil had hired--obviously a shared accommodation suited the two of them better, and so he hadn't sprung for the finest option.

Remus made a note of the car and compartment number and returned to his friend, who had packed up their papers and bid goodbye to his admirers, and now waited dutifully in their compartment, sitting up on his berth with his legs stretched out before him and a cigarette balanced on his lower lip. He offered Remus one and said, "So, what do you make of him? Anything we can use?"

He shook his head. "Something's not right about him," he said, lighting it with a spark off his fingers and half-turning for a moment to be sure the latch on the door had slid home.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, _everything_ isn't right about him, really," Remus said, pensive. "He's got a private compartment but he can't afford a haircut and a shave? Nurses the same drink for an hour? His clothes are expensive but they don't fit..." Remus frowned and shook his head. A lot of that could be explained easily by the workings of wizarding society--a lot of it they had in common, some days. What bothered him was the private compartment with no obvious benefactor, the sly and evaluating eyes lingering on strangers in the dining car.

He said as much to Gil, and the other man frowned thoughtfully, consideringly.

Some hours later, in the dark of the late summer evening, Remus and Gil were sitting sideways together on one berth, sharing the last of the gin, with heads leaned together intimately. Gil had a muggle romance novel he'd fished up somewhere open on his lap and was skimming it quickly to get the feel of the heroine's perspective, and Remus was staring past him out the half-open window at the speeding terrain, contemplating the past and the future in-between his friend's read-aloud excerpts and the interested commentary they inspired, when there came a sudden, single knock upon the sliding door, almost as if someone had bumped it accidentally on the way past.

The two exchanged a glance. Remus, still in his shirtsleeves though Gil had changed into pyjamas just after the evening meal, stood and slid the door across, only to find the corridor outside empty--or nearly empty, anyway. Looking left and right, he saw through the glass of the vestibule at the end of the corridor the other werewolf, vanishing into the next car. Remus glanced back to his friend, put a finger to his lips, and moved to follow the stranger.

Once again, they played chase down the length of the train. Though Remus was sure he couldn't have lost the dark-haired fellow, when he ended up in the parlour car at the end of the line with its perpetually-serving bar and its plush benches, he was alone, aside from the bored-looking barman. Cautious, with eyes alert, he took out one of Gil's cigarettes and lit it, slowly moving towards the far end of the car to check the final vestibule.

He became aware of a presence behind him then and stopped, casual, as if he'd simply wandered back to watch the dizzying view of the tracks flying under and behind the train as it sped along. "Which tongue?" Remus murmured coolly in French as the stranger approached.

"I saw you earlier, in the dining car," the other werewolf said in accented English, in a low voice.

"I know," Remus said over his shoulder, mild. He drew a long drag and exhaled slowly.

"With your _mark_."

Remus' eyebrows leapt. He turned to face the other werewolf fully, meeting his eyes steadily. "Pardon me?"

"I know what you are," the stranger said, looking him up and down with a lascivious grin.

"Hm," Remus said. "I suppose the sentiment is mutual."

The dark-haired fellow's lips curled up in a wry smile. "What's your plan?"

"My plan?"

"He looks like a fat goose. We could team up. Take him for all he's worth."

Remus shrugged, cast his gaze away to the side. "It is good to have a friend," he allowed, carefully neutral. He met the other werewolf's eyes again. "Is that how you got a first-class compartment?"

"Swindled an old nonce in Gdansk for the ticket," he said with a cruel grin. "The fool thinks I'm meeting him on the Champs-Élysées."

"I see," Remus said, curling one side of his lip up in a snarly smirk.

The stranger glanced back over his shoulder to be sure the barman was occupied, wiping glasses with his back to them both, and then he stepped closer, close enough to make his intentions uncomfortably obvious. Aside from the telltale signs of his lycanthropy, he wasn't bad-looking, Remus had to admit--and it seemed he knew it. "What do you say?" he murmured, his thigh nearly touching Remus' and his eyes locked on his lips. "Shall we cook your fat goose together and see where this train takes us?"

Remus smiled coldly and loomed closer, leaning in to force the other werewolf to step back. "I think not," he said, his voice icy, as he stepped past him. When he reached the other end of the car, he stopped and said in French over his shoulder, loud enough that the barman couldn't help but overhear, "Stay away from me, and stay away from my friend."

The dark-haired stranger barked out a short, sharp laugh. "I've got better things to do anyhow," he said, derisive.

Remus sucked in deep breaths to calm himself as he moved through the cars to the fore of the train again.

It was like being propositioned by a ghost.

"Stay close to me until we disembark," Remus told Gil in an undertone when he returned to their compartment. 

With blue eyes narrowed, hawklike and intent, Gil said, "He's a crook, isn't he? A conman or something."

Remus nodded. "Keep your wand at the ready and your purse secure," he said, wry.

"Oh, don't you worry about _me_ , darling," Gil said with a smug smile.

Later that night, Remus was half-asleep and restless in his berth under the dim light of the cold, silver stars outside the train's window when he felt the blankets pulled back and the mattress shifting under Gil's weight. He scooted forward towards the bulkhead to make room for the other man, and he felt his friend settle behind him with a sigh, sliding an arm over his middle and pressing a muffled kiss to his shoulder through the no-longer-so-crisp cotton of his pyjamas. 

He pushed back against Gil's hips to indicate his willingness, but he could feel the press of the other man's flaccid prick against him, soft and unwanting, and he made no advance. The arm around him tightened and Gil pressed more flush against him, kissing his shoulder again. Remus relaxed into the embrace, savouring the warmth of his friend's body, and was soon lulled by the rocking of the train into the deep sleep that had been evading them both.

The next day, there was no sign of the sinister black-and-silver fellow. Remus stuck close to Gil and kept alert, but it was as if the other werewolf had disembarked in the night--it was possible that he had, for although this line made no more stops before Paris there was no reason an experienced caster couldn't have apparated off the train. 

Now that they were past the wards that protected the French border, it would have been possible for himself and Gil to disembark early as well, to pop directly to Paris. They had discussed it and had decided against it, for several reasons. Chief among them, Gil was unfamiliar with the area of Paris where their destination lay, and so Remus, already somewhat weary and depleted from the week-long journey, would have to take him side-along and risk a factual splinching. Besides, Gil hated to be without his luggage for long as they had learned in Belgrade, and frankly both of them enjoyed the sights along the tracks and the tempting menu and the luxurious compartment, and they saw no reason to leave a pleasant accommodation which Gil had paid handsomely for.

But it was worth considering now. Remus hated to risk a tail, and it vexed him that the other werewolf had evaded and flanked him the night before as he'd tracked him down the cars. He usually found that the wiliest and most skilled werewolf in any given situation was himself, thanks to the elite schooling his father's connections and position in the Order had afforded, and his own long experience in combat and in spycraft.

He'd broached the subject with Gil as they were dressing in their compartment, but his friend had seemed curiously unconcerned, disdainful even, giving no account whatsoever to what he called a two-knut hooligan, and had confidently led the charge towards breakfast in the dining car. They'd seen no evidence of the fellow all day, and so had continued their journey as planned.

In late evening, the train had pulled into the station in the centre of the light-spangled city, and the two wizards had set off on foot in the direction of Remus' secret safehouse, bearing their hand luggage and stopping for provisions at a muggle corner market.

And now, finally, they stood before the door to the flat. It felt curiously intimate, showing this place to Gil, and Remus hesitated for a moment before he moved to unlock the door.

"Are we--breaking into this place?" Gil asked him then, mischief in his voice.

"Technically," Remus said as he drew Sirius' pretty little knife back out of the keyhole and slipped it into his pocket again. "It belongs to a friend of mine, but he's away."

"I didn't expect to run into any other--friends of yours," Gil said with a sour note. "When will he be back?"

"No," Remus said, cool, as he pushed the door open. "I mean that he's been _put_ away. He won't be back."

Gil's eyebrows leapt. "Well, you're full of surprises, arren't yeh?"

"Consistently," Remus deadpanned.

The flat was small, gaudily-coloured, and located in a muggle district which was both famously expensive and notoriously liberal, as all of Alphard Black's holiday homes had been. Remus and the other boys had never visited this one during Alphard's lifetime, nor with Sirius alone, during his old friend's time as master here, after his uncle's death. Remus only knew its location because of the puzzling lies and not-lies Sirius had told in the days before James' and Lily's double murder. When he'd washed up in Paris for the first time years ago, he had decided impulsively to check if the place really existed, and so it did--though it was dusty and disused, and showed signs even then of neglect. It was worse now, with a light odour of rodent and a curious rust-red stain spreading slowly upon the ceiling.

He had never been able to decide what this meant about the story Sirius had told him that night, of the plot to set up the _fidelius_ charm and the wild flight from England his old friend had had planned.

It had still never added up. Why would Sirius have baited an obvious trap with something real and then abandoned it before it was sprung? Had he planned to meet Remus here after all, when he was done with Peter? To kill him, too? Or because he'd thought Remus would join him in support of the dark lord? And where would that have left Sirius' _new_ companion, the one for whom he'd apparently turned in the first place?

He forced the conundrum from his mind for what felt like the thousand-thousandth time and led Gil inside.

"I'm sorry about the state of the place. Everything still worked the last time I was here, at least," Remus said, using a spell to light dimly the round amber globe of the lamp just inside the door. It cast a soft orange glow that illuminated the place almost-romantically, without being enough to show the worst of the decay. The illusion would evaporate in the morning light, but for now the small flat looked fine, even grand, with its ornate panelling and tufted upholstery. The Kelly-green walls looked unspecifically dark in this light, and the black nest of the bearskin rug before the fireplace seemed a hole through the parqueted floor into which they could both fall. "I'm not certain why," he went on, unaccountably nervous. "I imagine the family has a trust, or a solicitor who sees to its maintenance, or something of the sort."

Gil had strolled in casually, giving no reaction to the quality of his surroundings, as was his habit. Remus knew by now that it was an act--someone must have told him once not to show his appreciation for a fine room, that it would belie his humble origins. But he hadn't got it quite right: despite the obvious expense that had gone into furnishing the flat, this wasn't a tasteful place. Alphard had been a contrarian, and others of his class would have found the decor offputting and low, would have looked on it with disdain.

But it seemed elegant to Gil.

Briefly, Remus again wondered if the same sort of misunderstanding explained his friend's attraction to him.

He didn't mind, of course, that Gil pretended to higher status. It wan't much different to the act Remus put on, of being an ordinary human. The gold was still good, and he hadn't had the best experiences with wizards who were genuinely of the upper class, after all. It wasn't as if Gil told any _actual_ lies, he simply put on airs and let people make assumptions--and he didn't seem to care at all about being perceived as a pureblood. Remus somehow had always had the impression that blood-status wasn't so important to the Irish, though from what was known of prehistory it was likely the Fey stock that had originally quickened English wizarding bloodlines had hailed from there. He'd never heard of an Irish death eater, at any rate.

Remus only hoped he wouldn't one day find the other man disappointed in his own common origin.

Gil was his type after all, Remus had decided some time between Bucharest and Paris, if a rather strange incarnation of it. He had good hair, charming smiles and cunning winks and dramatic tendencies to spare, he was up for a bit of mischief and clever enough to be good at it, he didn't seem to mind the rapidly-escalating danger of their adventurous lifestyle. He even met the most important requirement: when pressed, he'd have a werewolf.

Remus watched as Gil toed off his emerald brogues and crossed down from the raised foyer to the cosy spot in front of the hearth where ornate settees and chaises had been drawn close around the bearskin. He seated himself upon the tufted purple chaise longe closest the hearth and spread his arms out over the side of it, stretching and yawning sensuously.

Remus followed, setting the package he carried upon the peacock-blue ottoman across from Gil's seat and spelling a warm, low fire into the grate. He used his wand, weary from the journey.

"Come and sit with me," Gil said with a grin.

Remus smiled. He opened one of the little brass boxes on the mantelpiece and pinched out a bit of the powdery incense he knew was kept there, cast it on the fire to hide the mousy smell--they could see to a few cleansing charms after they'd slept and eaten. He bent to open the parcel and brought out the bottle of wine Gil had selected on the way to the flat, a sparkling white Remus had charmed to keep cool for him. It wasn't Remus' first choice, but he liked it well enough. 

"I'm too tired to _accio_ the glasses," Remus said as he seated himself in the space between Gil's side and his spread arm. "And they'd be dusty anyhow." He tore the foil and popped the cork, holding it firmly in his hand as it burst, so that it didn't go flying, and passed the bottle to Gil. Remus watched him catch the foam in a messy slurp--there wasn't much, as he'd been careful carrying it, but it still made him smirk sideways at the other man.

Gil laughed and made as if to shake the bottle towards him, and Remus cracked up, feigning an exaggerated flinch. Before he had stopped laughing, Gil was leaning up to kiss him, sweetly.

"Mm," Remus said, pulling away after a moment and taking the bottle from Gil's hand. He drank deeply, passed it back, and slid himself onto the thick pelt to unpack the rest of their provisions onto the hearthstone: pungent cheese and toothy bread, smoky-smelling charcuterie for Gil, a jar of olives and more dark chocolate, a packet of cigarettes of a brand Gil said he liked better than the ones he'd been smoking in Romania, sugarcubes and fine loose tea for the morning. "Join me," he said coolly, to see if his friend would obey.

He handed the bottle to Remus again and did so, unbuttoning his golden waistcoat and slipping his arms out of it together with his embroidered bottle-green robes, so that he left them like an insect's carapace upon the chaise as he lowered himself to the floor in his shirtsleeves and trousers.

"Oh, it's soft!" he exclaimed, surprised.

"Charmed," Remus murmured with a laconic smile. The pelt, sturdy and solid to walk on, felt like a mattress once one was laid down upon it. Alphard had always been a solitary fellow, never having kept any intimate company so far as anyone knew. He must have been a simple hedonist, revelling alone in such luxuries. He grimaced at the thought--trust dear Uncle Alphie's impeccable bad taste to have preemptively furnished the place fit for a lycanthropic rent-boy cast off by his prodigal heir to crib in one day. But then Remus was too old to call himself that now, had already been too old for the designation before he'd understood what Sirius had made of him.

Remus shook his head to himself, feeling aggrieved.

Gil stretched out beside him on his belly, smiling appreciatively as Remus prepared their meal upon the hearthstone. He used Sirius' little knife, delicate and slender but finely-formed, to slice the pungent cheese and to spear the olives, taking some perverse pleasure in the knowledge that his old friend would be annoyed at the disrespect paid to the priceless artefact.

Merlin, but this place was still haunted, Remus mused to himself as Gil held his mouth open for him to pop a bite of bread and cheese into. Had coming here been a mistake?

Gil noticed his pensive stare and smiled brightly at him; Remus felt himself flush a little. He forced a grin and looked away to tear off another bit of bread.

"Are you alright?" Gil asked.

Remus nodded and busied himself spearing another olive, and Gil frowned consideringly.

A short while later, when they'd polished off the savouries and nibbled a generous chunk of the chocolate, still passing the bottle back and forth, Remus felt a thrill of gooseflesh up the back of his neck as Gil leaned close and kissed him softly behind one ear. 

He felt as if he was balanced on the edge of a momentous decision, an obvious one, one which he had clearly set himself up to make. There was no use in hesitating now. He swallowed his nerves and rolled onto his side so that they faced each other, so that he could lean in to kiss his friend's lips. Gil was gentle with him, as he always was, his taste and his smell had become familiar and comforting--Remus let his muscles slacken as he sighed happily into the embrace. He felt Gil grip him through his trousers, humming an appreciative note, and then Remus murmured, low and soft and blunt, "Do you want to make love to me tonight?"

Gil pulled away, startled. "Do you mean...?"

"Any way you want."

"We never talked about what you'd--"

"I won't sell it," Remus said, cutting him off sharply. He pursed his lips, regretting his tone. "Not to you," he clarified. "I want to be finished with selling to you. I want to be with you."

Gil blinked owlishly at him, sucked in a deep breath.

"Of course I understand if you prefer to--"

"No, no, I'm just--surprised." Gil smirked. "What'd yeh think the Champagne was in aid of?"

Remus glanced towards the bottle where it stood on the hearth, as if it could answer.

Gil looked down, seeming shy now. "I think I would've lost my nerve if you hadn't said something. I _was_ planning to ask you if you'd want to--" He laughed at himself. "--if you'd want to set up house together. Be a proper couple. Bit silly of me, maybe, but I--mm!"

Remus had leaned in to stop his words with a kiss, of course. "That's exactly what I want," he murmured. He looked away then, anxious, but he made himself say, "I know that I can't contribute anything of value--"

"Merrlin, are you joking?" Gil ploughed on before he could answer, though. "Remus, you're brilliant. I don't speak Romanian, or French--I don't even speak my own language properly anymore! I can't set a mobile ward or disarm an Auror or--I'm not even any good at cleansing charms, and you do them wandless like it's nothing. I certainly can't track werewolves. How do you think I could do any of this without you? You're worth anything."

Remus stared, wide-eyed. "Do you really feel that way?"

"Of course--Merrlin's sake, Remus, why did you think I lost my nerve? _I'm_ not good enough for _you_ without my gold into the bargain!"

"No, don't say that..." He clasped Gil's hand where it lay between them on the dark pelt.

"Doesn't feel very good, does it?" he said, sounding strangely victorious.

Remus opened his mouth and shut it again, startled. "I'm really very fond of you," he admitted. "I wouldn't still be doing this if I wasn't--trust me, there are plenty of wizards like us who need a friend and feel they can't have one any other way. But you... you make me laugh, you make me feel young." He tightened his grip on the other man's fingers. "I want to be with you," he said again after a moment. "Really. Even if we did begin wrong."

"It wasn't wrong," Gil objected, though to be fair he didn't sound entirely certain. "It was only--we both did what we had to do, to get what we needed."

Remus considered this, frowning pensively. "Do you still want--what you were going to propose?"

"I do." Gil looked up at him, questioningly, and Remus took a deep breath, swallowed drily, and nodded in confirmation.

Gil nodded back at him, and the understanding passed between them: suddenly everything had changed. They were, truly, lovers now.

With his heart in his throat, Remus shut his eyes and leaned his head back as Gil kissed him again, slow and sweet and almost without base passion at the beginning--it felt like the kiss of a person who cherished the one they were with, and just so, it built to a fire. Soon, both men were panting, heated, swollen-lipped and pressing against one another with sweet longing.

"Have you done this before?" Remus asked him a few minutes later, when they had both undressed and Gil found himself hovering useless on his knees between the werewolf's spread thighs.

"Oh--well, of course," Gil lied, rather obviously. "Not, er, this way, but," he clarified after a moment, guilty.

Remus smiled gently at him, surprised and pleased that his guess had been right--he'd been Sirius' first fumbling schoolboy lover, and Sirius had been his, but their untimely separation in seventh year had meant they'd each crossed that final threshold for the first time with another, unsure if they would ever be reunited. Now, now that Remus was a grown man who knew what he was doing and who had had time to become accustomed to the simultaneously blasé and tortuous doublethink of living inside a love affair that couldn't be named, no longer a nervous lad trying to survive as best he could without getting caught breaking the rules others set for him--now, the thought of being his new lover's first thrilled him instead of choking him.

And it was bittersweet, for he was aware of the contrast, of the fatal flaw in his first love, and it made his heart ache distantly through the thrill of new infatuation.

He wished desperately that Sirius would stay in his damned cell for once, if only for tonight, though he knew he never would.

"Come here," he said to Gil over the pounding of his own heart, reaching for his friend's hand to draw him close again. Remus wet his own fingers in his mouth and showed him what to do, careful and slow, and when he was ready, he guided the other man's hand to let him feel the difference.

Gil murmured something in slurring Irish, a colourful oath or a promise of devotion or a statement of disbelief, it didn't matter beyond that he still had the tongue for it when he kept saying he didn't.

Remus smiled and told him, "Spit in your hand," and then, as soon as he obeyed, "Again. Wet the tip of your prick with it."

"Fuck _Merrlin_ , the way you _talk_ ," Gil breathed, moving to comply with Remus' coolly-murmured order.

"I'd rather you fuck me," Remus said with a cheeky grin. "Now," he whispered then, cocking his knees up to spread his legs farther and cupping his ballocks up to display himself, to show the way he was still moving his fingers inside himself.

Gil looked up to meet his gaze, smiled nervously, and leaned down over Remus with his hand around himself. When he felt the clutch of Remus' flesh against the tip of his stout prick as it replaced those slender fingers, he released an explosive breath and threw his head back, laughing at himself.

He looked back down at Remus, meeting his gaze, bit his own lower lip, and pushed in, a little too fast--Remus gasped and set a hand in the middle of his friend's chest. "Go slow at first," he said, "it's been a long time," and Gil nodded, trying to obey.

Remus shut his eyes and bore down against the pressure and the sting, pushing at Gil's hips now and then to get him to pull back a little before continuing, to better slick himself. Remus' erection flagged as they sought their fit; his friend either knew enough to expect that or wasn't bothered by it, and kept going, jerky and tentative as he drove their first real thrust together.

When Gil was sunk fully, he leaned forward to lay himself languid over Remus, and the soft pad of his belly pressed down to trap the werewolf's shaft in the hot, tight space between their bodies. After the heave of a few breaths, Remus had gone from half-swollen and huffing with minor discomfort to stiff as an oak wand and panting with desire again, his blood quickening from the feel of Gil heavy on him and thick inside him. He reached up to tangle his arms round his friend's shoulders, cocked his legs up higher to slide his knees along the other man's ribs, to make it easier for him.

"Merrlin," Gil purred into his neck, feeling Remus' response against his belly. "D'yeh like it?" He sounded mildly surprised and tickled pink, again belying his innocence.

Still panting, eyes still squeezed closed, Remus nodded near-senseless against blond curls. " _Love_ it," he groaned, rough in voice and roughly-honest. "You will, as well," he added, a rumbly promise.

He felt the curl of Gil's charmed grin against his neck, and then he threw his head back and tightened his arms around his lover, gasping with pleasure as Gil began to thrust.

He had the heart, if not the rhythm. Remus used his own motions to show the boy what to do, how to move, angling his hips and guiding him with his grip. A sudden jostling as Gil shifted his weight, a long, slow roll of his hips, and then he had it, pushing slow and sensuous against the inner workings of Remus' manhood, an exquisitely tortuous pulse that made him shiver and curse.

"That-- That's it, just like that," Remus babbled, hot and stupid and rumble-voiced, and Gil hummed in agreement, surging forward for a deep kiss, slowing his pace to keep their mouths joined as he moved in him. Remus groaned roughly against his lips and deliberately forced his body to go slack and sprawling on the pelt, surrendering entirely to the other man's motions.

It wasn't over immediately, as Remus might have expected--his new lover fucked well enough, considering his inexperience. He wondered briefly and confusedly through the haze of pleasure if Gil might not have been lying after all, if he'd perhaps tried it with a woman before his preference had settled, or if he might have even been double-gaited, flexible as Remus himself had always been. He'd thought it was rare when he was younger, but then it might have only been rare to find anyone who would admit to it. He'd even occasionally suspected--

Oh, but he wouldn't think of that now, he told himself, firm. He let his eyes flutter open again, to fill them again with the sight of the one he was with now. The kiss had eventually broken itself as they moved, and he stared up at Gil now, at his short blond curls and the vicious-looking rictus of pleasure he wore, as his pace sped, as he rocked them both towards the inevitable end. Remus felt it building between the stout shaft up him and the press of Gil's weight on his own prick between their bodies--he'd never been done by someone with Gil's stocky frame before, and the way the other man moved on him was unlike anything he'd ever felt. He cursed again and babbled senselessly, he bit down hard on his own hand to stop himself sinking his teeth into his lover's shoulder, and then, finally, crying out as the muscles in his back pushed him powerfully up off the pelt against the other man's chest, he fell, easier than he ever had before in this position.

Gil gasped at the tight clench and gave one final long, deep push before he stilled and stiffened his whole body, clearly trying to make it last. Remus felt the other man's trembling in his sturdy arms, down his broad back, inside him. Finally, with gushing pulses of heat and a weak-sounding sigh, he came over the precipice as well, dropping himself loose-limbed onto Remus as he collapsed, satisfied.

The werewolf, being sturdier than he looked, took the weight easily enough, and embraced his friend warmly, dropping tired, sated kisses along his temple and forehead for long, sweet minutes, until Gil gathered himself and pulled out with a soft grunt of dismay that it was over.

Remus sparked a small and careless cleansing charm, too tired to be more thorough, and he was distantly aware of Gil pulling his green cloak down from the ottoman, spreading it over them like a blanket, and taking up the Champagne again.

His friend lay on his side, head propped on one hand, and drank from the bottle before offering it to Remus. He mirrored Gil's pose and took it, smiling, silent, oddly shy. He felt his tongue dart out almost of its own accord to briefly touch the scar that bisected his lower lip, and then he lifted the bottle and drank to their union himself, completing what felt like an impromptu ritual. The wine was still cool, still effervescent, and it felt like a restorative potion as it went down.

Remus was tempted to tell himself that it was finally done, that he'd finally replaced Sirius and would no longer think of him. There was the seeming of a finality in this, but if he were honest with himself, he was already certain it was only a seeming.

Otherwise he wouldn't have called his old friend to mind _now_ , would he?

Gil petted his hair, set a hand on his neck, caressing, almost-possessive. "Arright?" he asked with a nervous little grin.

Remus smiled softly and nodded a gentle affirmative. "I was just thinking it would have been nice to have had _you_ for a friend, back in school."

"Why the emphasis?" Gil sharped, cocking his head. "Did you have someone at school, then?" he asked when Remus made no reply.

Remus shrugged and ruffled his hair, shifting his weight to lie on his front and stare into the fire. The pelt under him, black or so dark brown as made no difference, felt wicked and delightful on his bare skin, and he threaded his fingers into it, nostalgic. The thing still smelled slightly of decay. The room smelled of sex now, and of Alphard's heady incense. "I thought I did," he said at length, feeling exposed in a way that had nothing to do with the nudity or the buggery.

"Ah," Gil said, understanding, or seeming to. Remus supposed the particulars weren't so important, really, beyond that he'd thought he'd had someone, and hadn't. "Kicker of a sentence, that."

Remus had to agree.

Gil took his hand, pulling his limp fingers from the dark fur and twining them with his own. "Well, we both have someone now," he murmured, the words soft and breathy against the werewolf's shoulder. "I shouldn't admit this, but when I first met you, I thought you'd be a bit of fun," he said after a moment, with his real accent, and Remus turned to meet his eyes again. "I thought I'd get a few good stories out of it, you'd teach me what to do with a man, and that'd be that, we'd get on with our lives. I never thought I'd want to keep you." He laughed softly, wonderingly. "Never dreamed I'd run off to Paris with you."

"This certainly was unexpected," Remus agreed, amused and pleased. He shifted to lie on his side again, snugged up flush against Gil with his eyes closed, and felt a soft kiss drop casually upon his cheekbone before his new friend settled in for sleep with a contented sigh.


	4. Paris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Interlude in the city of lights: the honeymoon, the beginning of the end of the honeymoon, and a timely new call to adventure.

When Remus woke, a little sore but warm and sated, he found himself still nestled comfortably between the black pelt Sirius had abandoned here years ago and the fine cloak Gil had bought him so recently. The bright morning light coming in through the open glass doors that let onto the narrow balcony was dulled some by the dark green of the walls, like the daylight of a deep conifer forest, and the sounds and smells of the Parisian muggle street, far below, drifted brokenly up to their secret nest, the miasma of a world that wasn't quite their own.

Gil had dragged a dining chair out halfway onto the narrow balcony and had sat himself upon it with his bare feet propped on the iron railing, smoking one of his pricey cigarettes and drinking tea from a delicate cup which bore the Black family's crest. He wore his favourite lilac dressing gown and nothing underneath it, and the sun caught in the golden fur of his bare legs and his unshaven jaw, making him glow a touch.

Remus sat up, rubbed at his eyes to clear them, and smiled wistfully to himself at the sight.

The single small trunk they had brought from the station last night sat open near the steps that led up to the foyer. Remus rummaged in it for pyjama bottoms, dragged them up his lean legs and over his bony hips, and padded softly out to the balcony to join his friend.

"Good morning," Gil smirked up at him. 

"It is, isn't it?" Remus said, placid and smiling.

Gil poured him a tea. He had found the whole service in Alphard's small, utilitarian kitchen, and had brought it out with two cups on a tray, which rested on the floor near his chair. Remus watched, pleased, as Gil used his wand to levitate two lumps into the cup and stir it with a flourish.

Remus' smile widened; after last night, Gil looked confident, at ease, pleased with himself. Even the echo of his magic seemed stronger. Perhaps it was only that Remus was more attuned to it now.

"Thank you," he said, accepting the cup and saucer. He stepped closer and slipped his hand into the breast pocket of Gil's robe, helped himself to the cigarette packet resting there.

"Last night was... magical," Gil said, using the wand he still had drawn to spark the tip of Remus' cigarette before laying it carelessly across the tea tray.

Remus sipped at his tea, took a drag. "Mm-hmm," he agreed, a smoky exhalation. "It was perfect," he lied. It _had_ been as perfect as it could have been, considering what Remus was, what they both were, what Remus had already lost. He set his hand on the back of Gil's neck, his long fingers playing softly against short blond curls.

Gil turned and looked up at him. "By the way, I think I've figured out who your old friend must have been," he said a moment later, raising his own Black teacup again and holding it so that Remus could see the crest.

Remus' eyes flew to meet Gil's--he tried to keep his expression composed and neutral.

But he'd failed: Gil was already giving him a sly grin, not exactly kind or comforting, but pleased he'd sussed the secret. He mustn't have understood the depth or the horror of the story.

Sighing, Remus looked away.

"I'm right, aren't I? I remember you now, from school--you were what, four years above me? Five? You used to hang around with that Sirius Black and his little gang. And they put him in prison after the war, didn't they? I remember reading about it. This is _his_ flat."

Remus cleared his throat, briefly considered trying to lie his way out of this corner, and finally nodded. 

Perversely, Gil seemed almost pleased to see Remus confirm it, as if he was glad to learn he'd just dipped his quill in the same inkwell as one of the prestigious--if now fallen--Black family. That idea quite sickened Remus, so he told himself he'd misinterpreted the expression.

He pursed his lips and stared intently at his own teacup. "You're too clever for your own good sometimes," he said at length.

"Well, to be fair, so are you," Gil said, sardonic, though Remus wasn't sure what he meant. _Cleverness_ hadn't got him into any trouble in ages, honestly--it was about due. 

Remus drew a final drag and snuffed the ember between his fingers before he flicked his dog-end over the railing, where it arced to the wide street below, shrinking too small to see before it landed among the curious muggle motorcars.

At length, Gil shrugged. "At least he had good taste."

Startled, Remus huffed a small laugh, then another, louder and freer. "Do you want to know what I think of _his taste_?" he said. He gulped the rest of his tea and then, smirking sideways at his friend, at his new lover, after a cursory glance over the railing to be sure no passersby would be in danger, he chucked his teacup over. 

They were too high up to hear the small noise it made, but Remus watched it shatter like an egg as it hit the pavers, and he laughed again, not his usual breathy huff, but deep and unfettered, half-loony--happy. One piece at a time, laughing along, Gil helped him throw the whole service over.

Later that morning, when Gil took himself off to the train station to retrieve the rest of his trunks, Remus smiled and kissed him goodbye, and declined to come along. Instead, he carried his own small suitcase into the fine peacock-blue bedroom on the upper floor of the flat, unpacked clean underthings and his shaving kit, and took himself into the high-ceilinged, tall-windowed bath. A couple of cleansing charms, a few minutes jog of the taps to clear the pipes, and a piss and a hot shower later, and he found himself staring at his reflection in the hastily-wiped mirror over the pedestal sink. It stared back at him through the clinging fog, almost-synchronised with his motions and his expressions, as silent and as cooperative as it had been for years.

Sometimes, it was almost-- _almost_ \--as if he'd never been Sighted at all, as if he'd imagined the whole thing.

"Nothing to say?" he asked the other Remus.

No response. Bland expression. Still lips.

"Fair enough," he said, and began to make foam with his shaving soap.

Later, clean and dressed, he opened the second bedroom, which had served Alphard as a library and study. He pulled the drapes aside and opened the windows to let in the light and air, spelled away the dust and clinging webs, and found the dead mouse, which he calmly incinerated on the rooftop terrace with a small, controlled pulse of blue flame.

He took Gil's hand valise and small trunk upstairs then, and was busy unpacking their manuscript and writing supplies onto the large desk when his friend returned, with much spectacle and cacophony--for he'd apparently abducted a brigade of confused porters from the station to lug his vast assortment of matched and monogrammed baggage all the way through la Rive Gauche.

"Remus?" he called from amidst a storm of boots and brass buttons and the thump of trunks being dropped onto the floor. "Are you at home?"

Laughing softly to himself with his hand over his mouth, Remus descended the stairs and surveyed the chaos.

"Are you ready for luncheon?" Gil asked airily when he saw Remus. "I've been craving confit of duck all morning!"

Remus took his hand away from his grin and nodded magnanimously.

"Ah, you've shaved off the 'tache," Gil noticed with a charmed smile. "Looks good." He took out his wand then. "Right--turn around, darling," he said, smirking mischievously, and Remus obeyed, fixing his gaze on the green panelling. "Eyes on me please, everyone!"

The porters set down the last of their burdens and directed their attention to him. Remus saw the reflection of a bright flash, felt the reverberation of Gil's magic in his own nerves, stronger this time--again confirming that they were wavelength-matched, that they could have cast through one another's wards. They could have learned to duel as partners if they'd trained together as boys, just as he and Sirius had, likely still could if they tried. The thought thrilled him in a way he had never anticipated: he'd never had another fighting match for a lover before. Perhaps _that_ was what he had been missing since those long-gone days of the war, of his youth.

With the casting done, Gil cleared his throat primly. "Everyone, eyes on me please," he repeated. "You've all had a satisfying break at your favourite local café, and you're ready to return to your work now, where you will immediately and entirely forget the way back to this flat. Thank you!"

Thinking quickly, Remus repeated the gist of the message in French as he turned to face the room again. Gil would have recruited them with English of course, but it was possible some of them were limited in their understanding of the language.

Blinking and shaking their heads to clear them and pulling out cigarettes and grumbling woozily, the troupe of porters fell in and moved out, and Remus and Gil were left alone in their _de facto_ home, smirking at one another with smug satisfaction.

"That was _brilliant_ ," Remus told him, always game for a harmless prank. "I was wondering how you were planning to pull that off."

"It's all a matter of getting people's attention," he said, throwing a pose and a grin. "Once you've got their attention, if you're charming enough, you can get away with anything."

Gil proved his boast that afternoon: Strolling bullishly confident in his favourite lilac silk, he bustled them across the river, under the skirts of la belle dame and into la Place Cachée, which he knew from his travels, and directly to the head of the queue for a table at a busy and pricey bistro. They were seated before the maître d' even realised he was _that_ Monsieur Lockhart, and soon he had his duck, just so, and his man smiling admiringly over the table at him, just as he'd set out to achieve.

"Gil, I've had a thought," Remus said as he delicately penetrated the top of his souflé au fromage with a single tine of his fork. "You said you were unable to disarm another..."

"Oh, well, I mean of course I know the _spell_ ," Gil said, dismissive. "It's just..."

"A matter of execution?" Remus guessed.

"Yes, that must be it," Gil admitted.

"Do you want to learn?"

"To duel?" His eyebrows leapt and a slow smile spread across his face. "You could teach me?"

"I don't see why not," Remus said. "I was in the duelling club, after all. We coached the younger students often."

"I'd like that," Gil said brightly. "They ended the club near the start of my seventh year, you know. I wanted to join, but I never got round to it, what with the newspaper and the quidditch team."

"You played quidditch?"

"Mm," he hummed, a vague affirmative. "I was a seeker."

"Oh," Remus said, trying to hide his surprise. Seekers were generally the smallest and slenderest on the team to allow for speed and manoeuvrability--often girls or lads from the lower forms. It must have taken Gil some time to grow into his square and sturdy frame. Perhaps if he'd looked different then, it could explain why Remus didn't remember him? More likely he'd simply never noticed the boy at all, he told himself reasonably.

"In any case," Gil went on, "I suppose they didn't need the duelling club anymore, what with the war over. I always regretted not joining when I'd had the chance."

Remus privately thought the younger man had been quite lucky, actually, that Sirius had ended the war before he'd got caught up in its recruiting ground. He set his hand on the table, near enough to Gil's that they could feel the warmth of one another's skin, but carefully not-quite-touching. "I would very much like to see you better prepared for the sort of trouble one can get into when one is wandering the world with a werewolf," he murmured, voice low.

Gil's eyes widened again and he didn't reply. For a moment Remus thought he was just touched by the sentiment, but then he said, "Merrlin, I think that's it!"

"What?"

"You've just titled the book--that's the hardest part, you know," Gil told him with a wink. " _Wandering With a Werewolf_ \--ah, no-- _Wanderings With Werewolves_ , that's it. _That's_ what we needed." He nodded decisively to himself and attacked his duck with relish.

Over the next days, they got on with the business of setting up house together in Alphard's gaudy little flat, which Remus privately thought suited Gil somewhat better than it did himself. The ostentatious furnishings, the jewel-toned walls and upholstery, even the gilt-framed mosaics of peacocks and parrots delighted his new friend. He would have liked dear old Uncle Alphie, Remus thought, the man into whose old life they had so deftly stepped.

It seemed Gil was quite content to play happy families here. He had immediately bought a new tea service for the flat, delicate white bone China with golden rims and a pattern of royal purple blooms arranged in racemes. He said they were meant to be lilacs, but Remus thought the dark colour made them look rather more like wolfsbane, or lavender at best, which in some circles had its own revealing connotation. Not that it mattered--they weren't likely to have guests at all in their secret and stolen hideout, let alone oblivious ones.

Gil no longer left coin conspicuously abandoned in the bedroom for him. Instead, he developed the habit of leaving a fat purse in a wooden bowl on the table of Alphard's small kitchen for household expenses and sundries, insisting that Remus take freely from it for anything he desired. He bought himself cigarettes and occasional sweets and meals when he went out alone, and it would fund his potion when the time came, which satisfied his needs entirely.

After spending some days situating themselves, and a few more absorbing the novelty of Paris, they returned to the old routine they had made for themselves in Bucharest. Most days, Gil would set himself up in the library after a late and lazy breakfast, still in pyjamas and dressing gown, working to draft or redraft scenes from Remus' life amidst a heap of parchment and imported Honeydukes' liquorice. Remus joined him in the work often, listening as he read out dialogue, critiquing his sometimes too-purple prose, reminding him of narrative threads he had forgot for a chapter or two. More often, he wandered the city alone while Gil saw to the tedium of proofreading and writing out missing segues, lurking in la Place Cachée or near cemeteries, observing the population and watching for others of his kind, and for stories they could root out and use.

A little more than a week after their arrival and a little more than a week before the third full moon since the start of their strange affair, on a bright and hot summer morning, Remus took himself over the river and north, past the entrance to the wizarding shopping district and uphill, through streets busy with muggle motorcars and plump tourists, to a quarter which seemed just as old as and far dingier than the city centre, much more his speed. The buildings became somewhat run-down here, and the windows had owls and kneazles sitting in them as often as cats.

He remembered the way back to the old immeuble easily enough, and when he found himself on the street before it, he strolled casually past it to a nearby café, where he took a corner table by a large window and ordered a tea, and settled down to wait and to watch.

Perhaps an hour had passed, and Remus had spotted a pair of unfamiliar wolves exiting the building, which gave him some hope that the one he sought was still living here, when a lean fellow in an ill-fitting suit and a stupid hat slid himself into the seat across the table with a grin and a softly-purred, "Hello again. What are you doing in my neighbourhood?" He stretched his long legs out in front of himself and leaned back in his seat, almost nakedly seductive.

Remus narrowed his eyes at the other werewolf. "I told you to leave me alone," he said in French, calm.

"How could I when you're sitting here alone, so charming?" The black and silver fellow's smile turned secretive. "Not chasing that goose anymore?"

Remus addressed him in French again, each werewolf obstinately speaking the other's own language at him. "My friend is not your concern."

The strange werewolf's attitude changed then; he leaned forward and narrowed his own eyes, switching himself from alluring to confrontational in a moment. "He has a taste for something dangerous, isn't it so? Maybe he likes me better."

Remus pushed his teacup away from himself and gathered his cigarette packet and his small, cloth-bound journal from where they lay before him on the table. He stood and said, "I doubt he would see the appeal," with some disdain.

The other werewolf barked a laugh and shrugged as if to cast his doubt on the assertion.

Remus shrugged back at him, feigning cool and placid. "By the way, that hat doesn't suit you at all," he said before he turned to go.

On his way back, feeling agitated and uneasy, Remus took a circuitous route through the districts which were inhabited by wizarding folk, finally ducking into a cemetery to apparate across the river and onto the rooftop terrace of Alphard's flat when he was reasonably certain the other werewolf hadn't followed him. He let himself in through the tall windows of the library room and, finding it empty, went downstairs to look for his friend.

He found Gil standing at the open balcony doors, doling out leftover sausages and personal thanks to a squadron of tired-looking owls perched upon the railing. A small wooden crate, about the size of a shoebox, sat upon the floor at his feet.

The last owl tossed its head back to gulp its payment down its gullet, and then turned to regard the others with authority. As if on a signal, the whole group gathered the air under themselves and departed, and Gil waved and called a farewell after them before turning to face Remus with a smile.

Remus pursed his lips and regarded the crate with obvious suspicion.

"Fan letters!" Gil exclaimed, pleased. "My publisher's forwarded them."

"You gave your publisher this address?"

"Sure! Come on, let's get them up to the study. You can help me answer them."

Remus frowned down at the crate, and then he levelled a stern look at Gil. "I'm not doing that," he said, voice flat.

"No?" He seemed surprised, and genuinely a little hurt.

"It's rather a waste of time, don't you think?"

"Well I don't answer them all, of course," Gil said, dismissive. "But I like doing it. It spreads a bit of happiness, you know? Makes people feel as if they've been noticed, like they're important."

Remus considered this, still somewhat uncomfortable with the whole idea for reasons he couldn't quite name.

"Besides," Gil pointed out then, prim, "It's good for one's image. You've got to put in the work if you want to be big, you know." He smiled rather patronisingly. "You might have fan mail of your own one day, if we can make something of this werewolf story. You'll understand then."

Remus sighed and turned away. "I'm going out again," he said, irritated and impulsive.

Gil produced a noise which sounded rather like an offended scoff. "But you've only just returned!"

Remus pursed his lips. "I wasn't finished with my errands," he admitted. "I shouldn't have come home yet." 

"Well--when will you be back?" Gil asked. "Only I thought we'd go out for dinner." He abandoned the crate where it sat just inside the balcony doors and followed Remus to the raised foyer, hovering near him.

"I don't know," Remus said, bland. 

Gil made a small, pained noise now. "Don't be so selfish," he wheedled. "We've a reservation. And I'll need help with these--moral support at least."

"I--" Remus frowned. He barely stopped himself from snapping out that he'd returned prematurely because he'd wanted to be sure Gil was safe, to spend time with him--not to do his correspondence for him again, as he had during their journey. "I'm sorry," he made himself say. "I have to check in with old contacts."

"For your potion?" Gil sharped immediately, sounding almost suspicious.

Remus nodded, back still to his friend, as he took up his cloak again. "I've been putting it off," he said.

Gil set a hand on his forearm to stop him slinging the garment over his shoulders. "Surely it can wait another day," he insisted in a pleading tone. 

"Gil, I must--"

"I won't have it!" He snapped, and Remus blinked, startled. "It's already nearly four, we won't have time to change for dinner if you go out again. Now stop this nonsense and I'll make us some tea--I got your favourite yesterday, remember?"

Remus sighed. He set his cloak down again. "Alright," he finally conceded. "The moon's hardly going to come early, I suppose."

"That's more like it," Gil said approvingly. He was watching him with an interested moue now, as if he had forgot the whole dispute as soon as Remus capitulated. "Speaking of, where do you go, here? During it?"

Remus turned back to the other man, surprised by the question. "Can't you guess?" he challenged his friend.

Gil frowned consideringly for a moment, and then he got it in one, with a grin. "The catacombs, right?"

Remus smiled, his irritation somewhat abated. "They were practically tailor-made for a hidden population of dark creatures," he said. "Vampires tend to hole up in the lower reaches, but there's plenty of room for a few dozen wolves. Some of them--" He cleared his throat. "Some of _us_ , that is, camp out in the catacombs the rest of the month." He didn't point out again that it was because they had nowhere else to go.

"Lucky you're not one of them, that sounds awful," Gil said offhand. "Now go on and hump that crate up to the library while I make the tea--do you want biscuits? We still have some of those chocolate ones you like."

"Yes, thanks," Remus said, mollified. "That sounds lovely, actually."

By the time they had finished the tea, Remus felt much more himself, and not at all irritated with his friend. In fact, when he thought back on the conversation some hours later, he found he couldn't quite put his finger on _why_ exactly he had been so annoyed, on what the argument had _really_ been about, and he decided the whole thing must have been a product of his own lycanthropic moodiness.

Gil spent lavishly on the evening meal, and was affectionate that night, but he seemed needy and dejected the next day--almost depressive in fact. He hadn't seemed to want to be left alone, and Remus had obliged him, feeling rather guilty over their disagreement the previous day and distressed by the apparent insecurity that suddenly troubled his usually-confident friend. They had got little work done though, for Gil had insisted his inspiration was flagging, and had spent much of the day stubbornly reordering the same few scenes again and again, rereading the same paragraphs in different orders until he said that they might as well be Greek to him, and that they had given him a headache. He had finally given the whole thing up for a bad job in the early afternoon and was now moping sullenly on the chaise before the hearth with a cold flannel on his eyes.

All told, it had been an unproductive and miserable day.

Remus had eventually concluded that some malaise or minor illness must have already been affecting his friend the previous day--like the migraine attacks his mother had used to suffer--and that it must have made Gil tetchy and needful of reassurance, so he held his tongue and tried to be solicitous. He felt unwell often enough himself that he knew it would be the height of hypocrisy to do otherwise. Hadn't Gil been uncommonly kind to him when he'd taken ill in Bucharest, and after so short a time as friends?

But as the afternoon wore on, Remus felt like a caged animal.

"Do you want anything from the shops?" he finally tried, casual, from the doorway to the kitchen.

Gil lifted the flannel from his eyes and peered at Remus wearily. "Ah, no, thanks," he said.

Remus nodded. "I must go and see about my potion while there's time," he said, firm. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

His friend sighed, morose, but he didn't seem too put out. "Alright," he said. "I suppose I'll have a bath and turn in early. Do be careful."

"You're certain you don't want anything while I'm out?"

"No, no, go on. I'll be fine," he said in a disappointed-but-conciliatory sort of tone. Remus couldn't help but feel Gil wasn't being entirely honest. He seemed as if he had some wish he was unwilling to voice. Perhaps he only wanted Remus to stay, and was holding back because he knew it was too much to ask at the moment. 

"I'll try not to be too late," he said, crossing the front room and donning his cloak. He paused and looked back at Gil, who had replaced the flannel over his eyes. "I always look forward to coming home to you, you know," he said then, and he was rewarded with a single blue eye peeking out from under the cloth again, and a weak one-sided smile.

He went on foot again though he could have made the errand quicker by apparating, eager for some time alone with his own thoughts and with the noise of the city. When he came back to the old immeuble he had staked out yesterday, he took his chances and went directly inside this time, climbing the stairs to the familiar red door with its chipping paint.

He knocked softly and waited for what seemed just a little too long. Finally, the door opened, and the woman on the other side of it regarded Remus with a surprised smile.

"John!" she exclaimed, delighted, with such heavy inflection that it might have been _Jean_ , leaning forward to embrace him with long, lean arms.

She was startlingly tall even for a wyfwolf, nearly as tall as Remus himself, bony and flat-chested and tired-looking. He thought she was older than he, though he had never been sure by how many years. She had dark hair cropped close to her skull and warm brown skin, and she welcomed him as she welcomed her guests, in a gauzy robe that belied her other profession--the one they had at times shared.

"Selene," he said, fond, accepting her embrace graciously, if a little stiffly.

"You've come back to me?" she guessed, half a joke, and smiling sweetly.

"Only for a visit," he said. "I am in Paris with a friend."

Her smile turned rueful and she led him inside, into a single-room dwelling stuffed to the high ceiling with plants and potions equipment, in-between the large bed and the small strand of muggle-style kitchen appliances. 

As Selene crossed the room, Remus eyed the soft bed wistfully, regretfully. He had found a refuge here once, in this weird walled forest of wolfsbane and arnica and cannabis. Not an affair disguised as friendship, not something else disguised as an affair, but a lonely sort of companionship born of desperation. Could one rightly call that friendship, he wondered?

It had always been peaceful here, if nothing else.

"I don't see you for two years, and now you arrive on my doorstep because you need the potion, isn't it so?" she asked with a teasing smile when the door was shut securely behind him.

He nodded. "I've been out of the country," he said.

"Oui," she said, "I know--you're always out of the country."

"Some country or other," he allowed with an amused grin as she lifted the cover on a simmering cauldron to check its contents.

"And how does your quest go, mon cher?"

He shrugged. "I'm not certain it does go," he joked. He sobered then and said, more seriously, "Sometimes I'm not certain there's anything to find, after all."

She regarded him for a moment, with an expression that must have been pity. "This batch is ready," she said then, businesslike, as she turned away to draw a ladle down from where it was hung on the wall. She nodded towards the centre of the large worktable. "Pass me a bottle and this funnel."

Remus obeyed, watching as she lowered the heat with a quick charm and poured out his dose. She stopped it with a cork and deftly sealed the rim with purple wax which she warmed in the heat of a pyramid-shaped golden candle. Selene put no label on her bottles, to keep the secret for those who required it, but she pressed into the hot wax a pewter seal which left an imprint of a skull and crossed bones, so that any ordinary wizard or even a muggle who came upon the bottle would know the contents would prove deadly to them.

"I hope that one day you find what you're looking for," she told him as she handed him the bottle, "even if it is not a cure."

He cleared his throat. "How much?"

"For you?" She shrugged and shook her head. "A gift, this month. Bring me flowers sometime," she teased.

"I can afford it now," he said, embarrassed, slipping a hand into a trouser pocket.

She shrugged and waved him off. "So can I."

He nodded and tucked the bottle into his overrobe. "I may be back next month," he warned her. "I'm not sure how long we're staying in Paris."

She nodded. "I don't want to see you any sooner than that," she told him, stern. "You're still taking it only for the moon, yes?"

He nodded.

"Good," she said. "Always remember that no matter what you feel, you don't need it any other time."

He nodded again, looking away with some embarrassment and regret.

"Promise me, John," she pressed.

"I'll remember," he conceded.

"Good," she said, watching him with calculating eyes. "Ah, John," she sighed wistfully after a moment, her whole attitude softening, "will you never come back to me?"

"I shouldn't think so," he told her, his voice soft. He had always known that the harm he could do by being with a woman was too great to risk. Throughout his life his resolve had been tested a number of times, and it would be a lie to say he had never failed. But now that he was older, wiser, more in control of himself than he had been in those wild and wolfsbane-hazed days just after the war, he held himself to a higher standard. He tried not to think of those times, now. "I am sorry."

"Ah well," she said with a smile, waving her arms to shoo him. "Go and be with your friend, mon cher. And be good to one another!"

When Remus returned to the flat in the dim golden light that hovered past the sunset, he found that Gil had indeed gone to bed early and seemed to be sleeping soundly, so he chose a slender old novel from Alphard's library and made himself a tea in one of their new cups, and then he toed off his shoes and opened the door to the narrow balcony so that he could sit upon the threshold and read by the brightening lights of the city and smoke one or two of the expensive French cigarettes Gil preferred.

The summer night was peaceful and calm--for Paris. The flat was high enough up that what city noise there was tonight reached him as a dull rumble, a nothing sort of noise like the sound of the sea, broken only by the occasional bleat or squeal of a startled muggle motorcar. He regretted that he'd quarrelled with his friend, that he'd been moody since, and he didn't want to think of it. He spent several hours reading, and though he finished the short novel before he took himself up to bed he felt unsatisfied to leave the hero where he left him, staring mournfully across the water at the green light that had haunted his friend, alone, having achieved nothing.

It seemed to be a tale where nothing had gone well for anyone, for no good reason--save that love alone couldn't hold a person away from a cruel and spoiled nature.

It was a story to which Remus could relate.

When he padded softly up the stairs and slipped into bed with his friend, Gil turned in his sleep to embrace him. Remus settled against him, fitting himself into the space under the other man's arm and against his chest, and fell easily into sleep, glad of the comfort.

Remus had strange dreams in the hot, still night, but when he woke he remembered only that they had been strange.

When he rubbed the sand from his eyes, he found Gil in his favourite lilac dressing gown, seated at Alphard's dressing table and scribbling industriously with his favourite quill in the bright morning sunlight, as if the previous day's malaise had never happened. Remus stretched his long limbs and yawned and said, "Are you working in here?"

Gil turned to him, smiling. "Ay, you looked a treat. I thought if I stuck around long enough you'd let me have a taste."

Remus smiled sleepily, glad his friend was back to his old self. "That is generally how I operate," he joked, and then he reached a hand out in invitation, and Gil set his quill down with a smirk and crossed to the bed.

When he was close enough, Remus leaned up and caught his hand in a firm grip, and pulled him down onto the bed, pinning him nimbly on his front and pressing a leg between his. He pressed a soft kiss to his friend's neck and murmured, "And what _exactly_ would you like a taste of?"

"Oof," Gil chuckled, grinning over his shoulder, "What's got into you?"

Remus pulled back, letting Gil up without a struggle and rolling onto his back next to his friend. He huffed a soft laugh as the other man leaned up onto one elbow, smiling at him. "Same thing that got into me twenty years ago," Remus half-joked, morose. "Sorry."

"Don't apologise," Gil said with a smile as he stretched out on his back and reached down to undo the tie of his dressing gown.

Remus nodded at him, and stopped himself saying it again. "How do you want me?" he murmured, forcing a submissive note into his voice and pressing close for a kiss.

Gil smiled, pleased and flattered, and showed him.

Remus' first full moon back in Paris was uneventful, relatively speaking. 

Again, they went out, back to the little bistro where Gil was by now well-known and where Remus at least was well-liked, to enjoy an early meal before the werewolf would have to keep his unpleasant appointment with the night sky.

Again, he felt the aura of it as the evening wore on, in woozy turns of his head and achy eyes, again he swallowed his irritation through the meal, and again he bade a fond if awkward goodbye to his friend to trek jittery through the city to a place where he could down his potion and enter the world of the dead.

He gained entry to the catacombs through a grate that drained rainwater away from the street, into a long and round-cut pipeline big enough for even Remus to stand fully upright, and from there through a maintenance hatch that led into the underworld proper, those alternately vaulted and rough-hewn tunnels lined here and there with shelves and stacks of old bones, the tombs which the living denizens of Paris' underdark called home.

The place was a dangerous maze, and he didn't know it well at all--he doubted anyone did, really. But he had memorised some paths, knew his way about a number of the chambers nearer the surface and nearer the entrances he frequented. It had been his habit, years ago, to join those werewolves who could dose themselves sober enough to patrol the upper reaches, to guard the world aboveground from those of his kind who hid here undrugged, mindless and vicious and with no other hope of keeping themselves in check.

There had, of course, been times when he had joined this second group, but he tried not to think of those nights.

He concealed his clothing and waited in a secluded alcove, made uneasy as he always was by changing someplace where he couldn't see the horizon, couldn't watch the tick of the stars to judge the time and the position of the approaching moon. Eventually, with no warning, he buckled and broke apart.

He heard agonised howling immediately, and forced himself to run on still-crackling bones to its source. He met up with two other dosed werewolves, a large grey adult male and a smaller, leaner pup the same colour, but with white skewbalding on his face and feet--much like that sinister black and silver fellow Remus had encountered twice now, though he was certain the pup couldn't have been him. He wouldn't have been more than a boy of sixteen or so, to judge by the development of his gangling, huge-pawed wolf-body.

They dashed together to the source of the howling, and found a slender wyfwolf, undrugged and frightened, alone, backed into the corner of a chamber that opened directly onto what must have been the cellar of some restaurant or dance club by way of a large metal grate, which she must have squeezed through in her human shape before transforming. Her fur was pale cream, and she reminded Remus of the silver wolf-girl he'd nearly known in Bucharest. He put his head down low and whimpered appeasingly at her, and the other werewolves followed suit until she calmed and let them approach.

After some time, she gave up her will to the pack, and came along with them as docile as if she'd been dosed as well, just as Remus must have done all those years ago, with his old friends back at school. She was hurt, both front paws bloodied and swollen, and it was difficult for her to walk, so the group moved slowly. They kept her with them as they patrolled the area, careful to flank her in case she caught a whiff of some hapless muggle legend-tripper and thought to take off running after them despite her injury, but the rest of the night passed without incident, and eventually the four strangers--Remus, a surly university-aged fellow with dredded grey locks and his vitiligo-marked little brother, and an elegant woman with silk-straight platinum hair and fingers broken by the diamond rings she'd been wearing since the previous night--woke curled together in an embarrassing and painful heap. 

"No--!" she yelped in French as she jerked herself out of the pile of werewolf-flesh and to her feet, horrified, "No, not again!"

"Wait--" Remus began, gathering his limbs under himself, but she was already stumbling-running away on small bare feet, vanishing bruised and naked down the tunnel, and he was too weak and too weary to follow her at that pace.

Pretty standard stuff really, he thought with a sigh.

Remus spoke softly with the older werewolf for some time. The boy waited a little ways away, clearly anxious and covering himself with dirty hands as he kept watch up and down the tunnel. Finally, Remus turned away to head towards his alcove again, and left the pair alone without looking back, to return to his home, and to his friend.

And so, the months passed, slowly and lazily. The time they spent in Paris together was idyllic in some ways: fine meals, a luxurious home, new clothes and frequent lovemaking and laughter as they worked together. In some ways, of course, it was ever-shadowed by the spectre of Sirius--though Remus suspected he would never free himself of that particular ghost, that interminable haunting by a man who hadn't even had the courtesy to die at the beginning of it. He tried not to think of it, but it had always been the one thing he had never had much success putting out of his mind.

And then again, in some ways, their time in Paris was completely fucking mental. Looking back, Remus realised now that there had been hints of Gil's fame before: that sly and nosy bellboy in Vienna might have recognised him as more than a prior guest or a fellow-in-preference, and some of that business with the women on the trains during the first part of their journey made more sense in retrospect.

In any case, it was all but impossible for him to avoid recognition here, so close to home, in a city that was nearly a sister to London. Not that he seemed to want to avoid it; again, he flourished under the praise, offering autographs and broad smiles and winks to all comers, and again, Remus went unnoticed beside him, or was assumed to be a clerk or a valet.

Not that he didn't perform a number of the duties of both.

He didn't mind much, tending to such mundane tasks for his friend. He figured they had made themselves a team, and if he could use his neat handwriting and his relative fastidiousness to benefit them both then so much the better--and of course he knew better than Gil how to mend clothing. He jotted notes, flooed up to restaurants to make reservations, drew bathwater, kept the flat tidy--all with a smile which managed to be serene, even if it was a bit forced sometimes.

He wasn't responsible for all of the mundane business of running the household, though: Now equipped with a kitchen, Gil turned out to be as surprisingly competent there as he had in bed. He cooked the muggle way as if he'd done so regularly in the past, as if he knew what he was doing. His repertoire was hardly a match for the chefs of the fine hotels they had frequented in the past, but he did a mean fry-up--even limited as he was to butter and eggs and mushrooms--and he could even bake when the mood took him. Remus dealt with the confusion and the Frenchness of the street market in the mornings, and Gil transformed what he brought home into simple but rich fare. They ate well, and Remus sleeked up even more, even his wolf-shape getting strong and glossy on fatty cheese and egg dishes, and hiding the juttiest of his bones.

Gil cooked meat separately for himself a few times a week, and sometimes he suggested Remus sample it, not at all understanding the depth of his visceral distaste for it, but he always firmly declined. His friend never pressed beyond that, though he often seemed disappointed that the werewolf wouldn't taste his efforts, and was sometimes a bit mopey until Remus took him to bed and showed his appreciation for a different sort of effort.

They'd set themselves up in the blue bedroom that had belonged to Sirius' uncle after that first night. The bed was large and comfortable, and Gil had promptly unpacked the bulk of his things into Alphard's spacious wardrobe, which had been left mostly empty--more evidence that the flat had fallen out of use long before the old fellow's death. He'd left only a few out-of-fashion cloaks with a rather theatrical bent to them, an assortment of underthings and a set of formal robes of a material too fine to crush inside a suitcase, clearly left here against the possibility of popping into the city for an evening at the opera or some other formal event.

Alphard had been built tall and lean like his nephew, and so most of what he'd left more or less fit Remus, though he felt that none of it suited him. Gil had pressed him to try the robes on, and had exclaimed sweetly at the dashing figure Remus cut in them, promising--or threatening--to find an excuse to get the werewolf into them for a night. Remus had laughed and declined, and had bundled the best of the gaudy cloaks up to take them for a cleaning and a new hem so that they could be added to Gil's wardrobe--he had rejected one long, silvery garment with disgust, though, proclaiming with a sniff that he would never wear fur again, and when Remus asked why, he wouldn't say.

Remus felt somewhat ambivalent about their scavenging a dead man's home, as he always had when he had used the flat alone in the years since Sirius' arrest. When he'd first found the place it had taken some time, and no little misfortune, before he'd finally worked up the courage to make use of it. By now, he told himself that he had known Alphard well enough to say the old fellow wouldn't have begrudged him a bit of comfort, even despite everything that had happened since those long-gone days when he and Sirius had been a pair of gangling youths with a secret, off on hols with a sympathetic uncle. Time, it seemed, had made him more pragmatic.

So, despite the occasional haunting shiver, they slept in Alphard's bed, they wore his clothes--and of course they worked in his library. The green baize surface of the desk was large enough to accommodate two chairs drawn up to it, one either side, and they often sat facing each other, smiling fondly at one another with their ankles tangled as they outlined and rewrote and edited Remus' story together.

This room was perhaps Remus' favourite, for the tall shelves filled with sombre leatherbound books had kept Alphard's ostentatious taste at bay, to some extent. A Persian carpet muffled their words and padded their feet, seeming to soften everything in the room, and a set of tall windows let in the sun or the city lights that shone over the stars, and opened onto the terrace sheltered from the street behind the mansard roof, where they had taken to practising duelling together in the evenings. Gil improved slowly but steadily, and Remus sharpened his own reflexes again. The resonance of their casting became more attuned, and the hum of it in Remus' nerves thrilled him and made him feel that they were becoming closer than ever before.

But despite the intensity and the tenderness of their first night in Paris, their first night as true lovers rather than trade and patron, the satisfaction Gil seemed most to prefer was still to lie back, languid, and let himself be brought off in Remus' hand or mouth. He always saw to Remus in turn or in tandem, sweetly and with enthusiasm, but he still seemed almost aloof when gently pressed for more. Perhaps he preferred to keep that full joining to savour as a rare treat--though he didn't seem to practice moderation with any of his other vices. Remus craved it, longed for that deep conjunction of flesh he'd missed so badly, for the opportunity to show Gil the rest of what he'd been hired to teach--but he was happy enough, sated enough by what they did together. He had never been one to rush anyhow, by far preferring a lasting affair to a whirlwind fling.

It would only be a matter of time, he told himself, with the rose-tinted certainty of his fondness for his friend.

Gil caught his wistful distraction with sharp blue eyes and lashed out quickly; the spell hit Remus' wand with a jolt that made his whole arm feel buzzy and electric--he shook his hand to clear the sensation from his nerves and reached out with a quick off-handed _accio_ to summon the pliant cypress shaft back to his grip. "Good!" he exclaimed brightly. "Again!"

Gil beamed under the praise and stepped back to _en garde_ position.

"Try it wordless this time," Remus ordered, cool, and Gil nodded and obeyed.

Remus' wand went flying again, and again he smiled at Gil and nodded his approval as he summoned it back--if he'd let it go a little easier than he could have this time, it would only boost his friend's confidence and reassure him that his aim was on target. "You're quite getting the hang of it," he said with a smile.

"I've a good teacher," Gil countered with a wink, and then, without warning, he disarmed Remus again with a quick slash of his golden-red wand.

The werewolf laughed aloud and snatched his own wand out of the air again. "I think that's enough for today," he said then, fond. "I must save my energy."

Gil crossed the rooftop terrace to where Remus stood and took out two cigarettes, and the two men lit them together off Remus' wand, leaning close against the cool wind that threatened autumn and eyeing one another merrily. "I'll burn a bit more, if you're up for it," Gil cracked with a smirk.

Remus shook his head, though he was. "After tonight," he said, firm.

Gil shrugged an amusedly-dubious shrug and and drew a deep drag. "If you say so. And what do you want for supper, love? Shall we go out?"

Remus smiled vaguely, the wind ruffling his hair. "Whatever you like."

It was new, Gil's murmurings of _love_. It was always used as a term of endearment, never as a verb, and he was careful to always be careless about it. But he'd said it.

It made Remus nervous, considering his past. He was content here, his needs were satisfied and he was happy to have a dear friend who liked him and who understood him, grateful to have found an intimate companion and a partner in his small and harmless crimes again. But he sometimes feared that he was permanently wing-clipped, ruined by that first, disastrous love that had turned out not to be love at all. He no longer trusted himself to gauge the intensity and the verity of that particular emotion when--and if--it fluttered frantic like a pixie in his ribcage. The excitement of attraction, the fondness of friendship--where was the line?

Did it matter?

And quite a large part of him found it difficult to believe that anyone else had any better sense of it than that. He didn't think Gil was deceiving him exactly, but he sometimes wondered if they were both deceiving themselves. Those were the sort of affairs he had fallen into before, dalliances that were conducted separately between two people and the ideas they each had of one another. It had never ended well, once they actually saw one another.

But clipped pinions grew back, after all.

None of Remus' fleeting and mercenarial affairs had lasted as long as this before, unless one counted Sirius. None had ever lasted long past the revelation of his lycanthropy, unless one counted Sirius.

He was still never certain whether or not to count Sirius.

They fought over petty nonsense sometimes. Of course they did. Remus found himself accidentally hurting Gil's feelings or asking too much of him now and then. Maybe that was a sign it was real, he told himself; he had often bit his tongue too hard, trying to keep artificial peace in other situations, and he knew it had been a performance, often even with Sirius, by the end.

Everything with Sirius had been a performance, by the end.

But Gil had seen him as he really was, grumpy and tired and bruised, and had never flinched with fear or rolled over on his own convictions. He _ought_ to be biting his tongue more if his feelings were genuine, Remus told himself, ought to be making things as easy as possible on his friend, considering the difficulties his condition made for them both. But the charming young fellow waved away every lycanthropic inconvenience with a smile, stood his ground even when faced with a proddy werewolf, something Remus could never have said for any of his human lovers.

Except, of course, for Sirius.

He missed having a companion on full moon nights. Sometimes, carefully and wistfully in the small and closed-off part of his mind that still missed some of what Sirius had once been, he wondered what it might be like if Gil could learn the animagus transformation. Might he be a sly, golden-red fox? A stubborn stallion with nostrils flaring and hooves tramping determinedly?

Dare he hope that Gil might find himself in the pelt of a sweet and loyal hound? Would he even want that again? It hadn't turned out to signify loyalty at all in the end, rather that Sirius would always be capable of turning his wicked teeth on those who had loved him.

But Remus always put that thought out of his mind, sternly, stubbornly, and went alone to the catacombs.

It was Sirius and James who'd always had top marks in potions, anyhow. Gil could never become what Sirius had been.

Ever since the first full moon after his return to Paris with his new lover, Remus had kept an eye open for the platinum-haired wyfwolf he had encountered that night, but he hadn't seen her, either in her human shape or in her wolf shape. It wasn't difficult to encounter a person once and then never set eyes on them again in a city like this, but he still held out some hope. It was clear the elegant woman was newly-infected, and she might not have entirely understood what was happening to her. He felt haunted by the terror she had shown that morning, and he wanted to reassure her that she could live relatively normally if she took the proper precautions, wanted to reassure himself that she would be kept safe and under control.

She might have left the city. She might have found that her position in human society was too tenuous to keep her in comfort now, and despite the fine rings that had fractured her bones she might now be slinking homeless through the same streets he had once roamed. It was possible of course that she had met with some brutally mundane misfortune that same morning, naked in the tunnels under the city, and had joined the heaps of bones that rested there. He might never know.

Remus had often found himself preoccupied with wyfwolves when he encountered them. Despite his preference--which he again had to admit was chosen in the face of inborn flexibility--he had always felt at the very least a sense of duty towards females of his own flawed species. 

Perhaps it was only because they so often seemed to fare so much worse than werewolves in the human world.

In any case, on the morning after his third full moon back in the city, Remus dressed under the empty gaze of a number of dead men alleged to be monks and finger-combed his messy hair and, no longer so tired and depleted as he had used to find himself after transformations thanks to Alphard's comfortable bed and Gil's hearty diet, he spent some hours patrolling the area near the cellar where the impromptu pack had encountered her that night, inside the catacombs and out, searching fruitlessly for any sign of her.

Finally, in the early afternoon with his stomach rumbling and dark shadows under his eyes, he crossed the river again and strolled, weary, towards home and towards his friend.

As he approached the ornate limestone building in which Alphard's flat was situated, he caught sight of a tall, slender fellow in an ill-fitting suit, with a messy mop of particoloured waves cascading loose across one side of his face in the first cool breeze of autumn, stepping hastily away from the building with his shoulders hunched and his eyes darting nervously about himself.

Remus ducked backwards into a doorway and pitched his face forward to drop his hair in front of his eyes, and waited until the other werewolf had vanished down the street, his black and silver head on a swivel the whole time.

Remus frowned to himself, and lit a cigarette, and leaned back against the wall to observe the comings and goings on the street for a while.

"Hullo," he said carefully to Gil when he entered the flat an hour or so later.

"Remus!" the other man exclaimed from his seat on the dining-chair that still hovered near the narrow balcony, seeming delighted, and rather worn, as if he'd been up late and hadn't slept well. "I was worried, you're usually back earlier than this."

"I... had to check on something." He cleared his throat. "Have you been at home all day?"

"Sure," Gil said offhand, "and where else would I be?" But it was clearly rhetorical. "I was waiting for you."

Remus nodded, frowned, and cleared his throat again. "And no one--came to the door or anything?"

"Are you arright?" Gil asked, stubbing his cigarette out on the saucer of his teacup and turning to face Remus more fully.

"Mm-hmm. Just hungry, I think."

"Well go on and get changed then, we'll go out for a bite."

"I'd rather stay in."

Gil fixed him with a wounded look. "I've been worrying myself sick all day, I don't feel much like cooking now."

Remus nodded. Gil _did_ look tired. "Of course," he said. "I'm sorry." He blinked and rubbed at his eyes with long fingers, sighing. "I'll feel better after a shower, I'm sure." He began to move towards the stairs.

"Hey!"

"Hmm?" Remus turned back towards his friend.

"Where's my kiss?"

He smiled, and huffed a breathy laugh, and crossed to lean down and brush his lips sweetly against Gil's. "I'l be down in a bit," he murmured, eyes half closed and still bent close to his friend.

They went out for a late lunch or an early supper at a muggle café on a wide boulevard that intersected with their own, and from there to the smoky and ill-lit absinthe bar which Gil had found nestled on a narrow backstreet in the wizarding shopping district some weeks ago. Gil had made a joke of it then, that all the places Remus liked best were notorious for the allegedly-toxic spirit, and Remus had laughed and shrugged and said some snarky thing about his being used to venom in his mouth, and they had laughed about it together over their glasses, as they laughed together tonight about other inconsequential things. By the time they made their way home, Remus felt warm around the ears and a little punch-drunk from lack of sleep, and quite happily smitten.

In the week following the September full moon, Gil was invited--and Remus was obliged--to appear at a posh wizarding bookseller's in La Place Cachée. It seemed that in the months they had spent in Paris, word had got out that the famous adventurer-author Gilderoy Lockhart himself had taken up residence somewhere in the city, and correspondence from his publisher indicated rather forcefully that it would be in his best interest to actively court his readership there--or failing that to vanish again into the countryside where he could not be perceived to be holding himself aloof from his fans. He had agreed with enthusiasm, and had set the condition that Remus handle the details and act as his assistant and interpreter on the day, and so it was that Remus found himself standing placidly in the centre of a storm of giggling schoolgirls and blushing matrons, acutely aware that he alone had, unequivocally and intimately, the one thing they'd all come to admire.

Again, he was reminded of old times with an old friend, of sitting calmly next to the confident and handsome school-celebrity that Sirius Black had once been, as pretty young witches vied for his always-unavailable attention. He nudged Gil, seated next to and a bit in front of where he stood, with a bump of his leg, and cast him a small, secret smirk. He was rewarded with a winning smile, as bright as those his friend gave his admirers, and quickly redirected to appear as if it was for them.

Remus tucked a perfumed letter away inside a folio as it was handed over from a middle-aged witch to Gil, and from Gil to him, and then he watched his friend clasp her hand warmly and address a personal missive to her inside the cover of his most recent book, a text on vampires he had published the previous year. A moment later, he nodded his acknowledgement of Gil's murmured request for an orange squash in-between handshakes, and stepped away.

At the bustling café counter on the other side of the establishment, Remus was quickly served by a young witch with short, spiky hair and an ironic cant to her unpainted mouth.

"Orangina, s'il vous plaît," he told her in a bland voice.

She nodded and _accio_ 'd one down from behind the bar. "For him?" she asked in French with a jerk of her head towards the busy scene on the other side of the shop, and Remus nodded. "It's complimentary," she said then with a bored-sounding note--no doubt the proprietor of the shop had instructed her to be generous with the visiting star.

Remus thanked her mildly and waited.

"You work for him?" she asked, pouring the fizzy concoction out into a glass chilled with a quick spell. "Or does he work for you?" she prodded when Remus didn't immediately respond.

He hesitated. "Er... It's more of a partnership, one could say." He cleared his throat. "I suppose."

She nodded and laughed. "You want anything?" she asked, handing the Orangina over with a wink and a crooked smile.

Remus smiled back, kindly if a little stilted. "Non, merci."

The girl shrugged, unconcerned. "Tell me, should I read his books? Is he good?"

He opened his mouth, frowned, and closed it again. He glanced across the shop at his boisterous friend and his busy court of admirers. "People seem to think so," he concluded with a smirk.

She laughed, bright and merry, and bade him a cheerful goodbye.

Later, as they were leaving the shop in the early evening, Remus calmly informed the bookseller that he required a copy of Gil's most recent effort for promotional purposes, and though the man was clearly baffled in his polite and effete way, he raised no objections when Remus slipped the volume into the breast of his overrobe and strode out the door behind his friend.

They walked home together, laughing over memorable moments from the day and flirting carefully during lulls in the foot traffic. They ate a quick supper with their fingers, standing up over the worktop in Alphard's kitchen, leftover bread and cheese and apples, and cold pork for Gil. They chased it with slugs of a too-sweet elderflower liqueur that Gil had found somewhere on one of his shopping trips the previous week, and a pair of those expensive cigarettes, and then Remus smiled gamely at his friend's suggestion that they take themselves up to bed, though it was still early.

Gil had him again that night, finally. Puffed up and pleased with himself after the day's endless adulation, he coaxed Remus onto his knees at the edge of the bed, and took him from behind, panting sweet endearments all the while. When he was finished, Remus tried to lay him down on his back among the down pillows and fuck his throat, a little rough--but after a short time his friend hummed a disapproving note and pushed at his hips, so Remus pulled away to straddle him and pin him by one shoulder, stroking quickly with his scarred right hand until he spilled onto Gil's chest.

Though it was quite satisfying after so long matching himself to Gil's milder libido, the whole thing felt to Remus a bit rushed, a bit peremptory.

"Mm, do the thing," Gil purred with a lazy smile as Remus stretched out next to him.

"Do it yourself, if that's how you want it," Remus said, cool, sliding his hand through the slick. "I _like_ the mess."

Gil laughed at him and called him cheeky, and collapsed back, relaxed into the heap of pillows--but after a moment he lifted his wand from the side table to cast the cleansing charm himself. He'd been improving at that as well, Remus thought approvingly, now that they exercised the nerves in their forearms together more frequently, in their training sessions on the rooftoop terrace.

He reached up to ruffle Gil's blond curls with his newly-clean hand, and then leaned up to kiss him deeply before he rolled his long limbs out of Alphard's bed. Yawning, Remus stretched his arms over his head and padded into the bath, leaving the lights _noxxed_ and the curtains open to the blue night in both rooms. He turned back at the threshold to watch Gil roll onto his side and draw the bedclothes up around himself before he slowly snicked the door shut.

After a long, hot shower and a minute or two of staring speculatively into the fog-streaked mirror again, Remus dressed and gathered a few things into the pockets of his overrobe, and took himself silently away from the flat.

He returned early, with fresh pastries from the place round the corner to share with his friend, and if Gil realised he'd been gone all night he said nothing of it.

"No. Watch my feet," Remus said. "Step, cross, step--cast." He switched direction, strafed back the other way as he called out his moves. "Step, cross, step--cast. Do you see? It's like a dance."

" _Why_ is it like a dance?" Gil blurted, frustrated. "What does it matter where my feet are!"

"It matters," Remus said firmly, "because if you don't know where your feet are you'll trip over them, and an enemy isn't going to give you a hand up and let you try again. Now, once more."

"I'm not your enemy!" Gil snapped, ramming his wand back into the breast of his robe and pacing away from Remus, his back turned. "I don't want to do this anymore, we've been at it for hours."

Remus crossed his arms over his chest and frowned--it was an exaggeration, and it annoyed him. "I'm sorry," he made himself say. "You're doing well. I think sometimes I forget that the stakes aren't as high as they used to be," he admitted, looking away.

Gil turned back to him now, his sharp blue eyes narrowed. Remus half expected him to continue the argument, but instead he blurted, tactless, "God--you _fought_ , didn't you? In the _war_?"

Remus deflated, uncrossing his arms and unstraightening his spine, slipping his wand back into his pocket. He laughed at himself softly. "Of course I did," he said with a sigh.

"I never knew," Gil said. He seemed to want to say something more.

"Merlin's sake, you're not going to _thank_ me, are you?" Remus grumbled, bitter.

"I'm not sure what to say."

"Don't say anything," Remus sighed. "I fought because I was obligated to do so, and it cost me everything I held dear. Just forget it."

Gil looked uncertain--perhaps he was putting this revelation together with the knowledge that Remus' old friend--his old lover, we're too far gone for euphemisms here, Remus told himself--had been sent up as a death eater. Perhaps it would make him more tactful in future.

"Please just forget it," Remus repeated.

"Alright," Gil said with careful enunciation, though he still seemed unsure. After a moment, he said, "Do you really want me to forget about it?

Remus nodded, still looking away.

"Try it, then."

"What?"

"You said you'd never got the hang of memory charms. Maybe _I_ can teach _you_ something."

Remus met Gil's eyes again, startled and, if he were honest, a little horrified. "I don't want to cause you any harm," he said.

"You won't. You've only to focus on exactly what you want the person to forget, and tell them a story that covers exactly the time period that would go missing. It doesn't take much. Just tell me we went for a walk along the river instead of practising today. My mind will fill in the details."

Remus hesitated. "I don't think I want to do that," he said. It felt... manipulative. After a moment, he blinked, startled by a sudden suspicion. "Gil," he asked, "you haven't ever--made _me_ forget something, have you?"

Gil studied his face for a moment before he shook his head no. "What would I want you to forget?"

Remus pursed his lips. "I don't like the idea of it," he said. "I don't want us to do that to one another."

"Fair enough," Gil said, curt. He drew his wand again. "But--let me try to body-bind you one more time. I think I've got it this time, really."

Some days before the next full moon, Remus lounged supine on Selene's big bed, watching idly as the bony wyfwolf ground dried wolfsbane in a green marble mortar.

"I can't help but think there must be some obvious way to find her," he said for perhaps the third time since he had arrived, an hour ago or so. "Something I'm not seeing."

Selene shrugged, unconcerned. She took a pragmatic view of most things. "Why does it distress you so?"

"Because she might need help," Remus said, aware that it was half a lie. "Because I want to know her story," he admitted then.

"That old man still has you by the nose?" Selene teased, not knowing the details of Remus' new arrangement with his new friend. "I never understood why he wanted to know so much about werewolves. We are... not so interesting." She laughed softly.

Remus hummed a dissatisfied note. "That isn't it," he said. They had a lot in common, he fancied, himself and that platinum-haired wyfwolf. He couldn't shake the notion that she would have to have lost whatever--or whoever--had given her those rings by now. Sighing, he sat up and drew Gil's book out of his overrobe, and began once more to flip through the pages.

"And what is that?" Selene asked him, setting aside the mortar and pestle to stir clockwise the bubbling contents of one of her many cauldrons.

"Oh, just another little conundrum," he said. "Do you know much about vampires at all?"

"I know only to keep away from them," she said with a slight shudder. "Without someone who can fight like you by my side."

Remus nodded. Curious then, that a man who'd had to be trained in the proper use of _expelliarmus_ over the summer could have rescued a pretty young lady-adventurer from the clutches of a den of the beasts two years ago. "I wouldn't mind tracking _her_ down either," Remus murmured, more to himself than to Selene.

"Only a little while longer," Selene said airily of the purple brew, tapping her silver ladle on the brim of the cauldron. "And then I'll send you back to your home to be with your friend."

Remus saw the black and silver werewolf on the street again on his way home from Selene's. This time, though, the fellow was some distance down the street from Alphard's building, making his way towards the broader boulevard that led to the footbridge Remus and Gil often used to cross to the northern side of the river where the wizarding peoples of the city mostly dwelt and traded.

The other werewolf had seen him first, he knew immediately, for the fellow had him fixed with a territorial glare already by the time Remus noticed him.

Impulsive, Remus crossed the street to intercept him. "What are you doing here?" he called from a dozen paces away, closing rapidly.

"Nothing to do with _you_ ," the black and silver fellow snarled half over his shoulder, hastening his pace to get past Remus before he drew near.

"Yeah, best keep yourself on the other bank, then," Remus snapped at his retreating back in English, "if you want nowt to do with my _wand_."

Unconcerned for the sensibilities of his muggle neighbours, Remus spun in place then, touching down on the rooftop terrace with a frustrated sigh. He lit a cigarette and smoked with quiet intensity for some minutes, until Gil, returning to his work in the library with a pastry on a small plate, noticed he had come home and stepped out to join him with a pleased grin.

Remus swallowed his frustration and his suspicions, told himself he was just irritable because of the approaching full moon, and smiled.

The night of the October full moon was chill and wet, and all the stunted trees along the wide boulevards of the city had turned gold and begun dropping their leaves in the days leading up to it. The autumn weather put Gil in a homey mood, and had inspired the purchase of a cosy new dressing gown in Gryffindor red. They had dined at home, undressed and lounging on the bearskin rug by the warm hearth, and then Remus had kissed his friend goodbye and gone up to change into warm robes for his twilight expedition.

He departed with some time left before moonrise, disapparating from the rooftop terrace to a hidden, tree-lined walkway, nestled between the crypts of Père Lachaise, where he had heard from Selene that some unknown werewolves had taken to lurking in recent months. He hoped to find them with time enough before their transformation to steer them someplace safer, or failing that to keep them contained to the park-like graveyard. For some time, he walked the cemetery's paths, encountering no other beings or beasts, though he couldn't shake the feeling that he wasn't alone.

Eventually, he came to a stop on the path, certain now that he had heard footfalls behind himself.

He turned his head slowly this way and that, listening intently, and slowly slipped his wand out from where he gripped it inside his pocket.

It was just when he had finally decided he must be alone after all that he felt the blow, blunt and hard against his shoulder. Reeling, he spun, was gripped by the lapels and shoved backward, hard, against the marble wall of a tomb, with another werewolf, shorter and stouter than he, pressing up against him to hold him still.

"Get his wand," he heard the other werewolf rasp in French, and a small figure moved forward to grapple his arm--Remus released his grip on his wand immediately, unwilling to risk breaking it and not as reliant on it as his attackers probably assumed. The shaft was wrested from him in short order, and the other werewolf shoved a rough hand into the breast of Remus' overrobe, pulling at the cloth and fumbling against his chest.

At this violation, Remus snapped out of his shock. He unslumped himself, drew himself to his full height and straightened his shoulders so that he could look down on the other by a foot or more. 

It was an unfortunate fact that werewolves infected as children made more impressive specimens in adulthood, grown tall and lanky and wiry-muscled by the effects of the transformations and the superlative healing and metabolic abilities that accompanied them. It came with a price: those bit as children aged faster and were crippled more severely by the years, and the lupine mutations that gave them away became clearer and clearer as time passed. If he lived long enough, one day Remus would intimidate any who laid eyes on him, like that beastly creature who had infected him. For now, he could do it on command.

"I'm warning you," he told the other werewolf in the same tongue, "I'm a combat mage. I can defend myself."

The raspy voice laughed harshly, at least pretending to be unimpressed by the display or by the boast, and the rough hands continued to prod him, searching for something in his robes.

Remus pursed his lips, gathered and aligned his energy the same way he had gathered his lanky body, and discharged a hot red flash of _stupefy_ against the other werewolf's chest, the spell arcing painfully between his own hands.

Several things happened at once: the flash of the spell illuminated the other werewolf's face, and Remus saw that he was unfamiliar, not, as he might have expected, that black-and-silver-maned tough who'd been lurking around Alphard's flat. The force of Remus' magic propelled the other werewolf back, where he fell unconscious against the side of the tomb opposite the one he had pressed Remus against. A small figure, the one who had taken Remus' wand, darted away behind a nearby shrubbery with a frightened squeak, clearly hoping not to be noticed in the commotion.

When the moment ended, Remus bent to retrieve his wand, dropped in the confusion. He turned calmly towards the stand of myrtle, feigning unawareness of the hidden figure to see if it broke first. For a long moment, neither moved.

"I know you're there," he finally said, voice as low and as calm as he could make it.

The snap of a twig, a soft whimper, and then the figure straightened from behind the shrubbery, wide-eyed and hands held aloft with palms open, as if Remus were an Auror.

He sighed, dismayed. It was a child dressed in rags, perhaps thirteen or fourteen, of the particular brand of near-indeterminate gender that belonged to streetwise tomboys. A human child, not a wolf pup.

"Don't hurt my father!" the girl chirped bravely, though she had no leverage in the situation.

"I'm not going to hurt anyone," Remus told her, weary. He slipped a hand into his robe, feeling for the potion bottle there. He found it, safe and intact, and with a sigh, he held it out to her.

She stared at him, uncertain.

"Go on," he said, stepping closer. "It's what you were after, wasn't it?"

Hesitant, the girl stepped forward, around the stand of myrtle, and when Remus made no sudden moves, she reached out to take the bottle from him. Once she had it, she backed quickly away towards the place where her unfortunate father was slumped, folding her arms around herself and glaring suspiciously at Remus.

"He'll only be out for a few more minutes," he told her in a gentle voice. "Be sure he finishes it before the moonrise."

She nodded.

Having no other way to improve the situation, Remus nodded back at her and spun in place.

Remus touched down on the rooftop terrace and pushed the tall windows open with too much force. "Gil?" he called, too-loud and too-rough. "Gil, are you here?"

He was halfway to the stairs when his friend appeared at the top of them, still undressed for bed. "Remus? What are you--?"

"You have to go," Remus said, urgent, half a growl. "You have to get out, _now_."

"What's wrong?"

"I couldn't get the potion," he lied, pushing past the other man and into the blue bedroom, where he pulled his suitcase from under the bed and flung it open. 

"I thought you'd already--"

"You have to go, there isn't much time--"

"I'm not dressed," Gil protested absurdly. "What are you doing?"

Remus had fumbled out a glass bottle, stopped with a cork, filled with small white tablets. "Wolfsbane doesn't keep long," he ground out, shaking several of the pills into his hand. "But muggle sedatives do. It's all I can do--please, you have to get out."

Gil nodded, looking scared, and began to rummage through Aphard's wardrobe as Remus swallowed the tablets dry.

"Gil, I--" Remus knew he looked frantic, pained. "I'll be injured, in the morning. I'll need help. But you mustn't return until dawn, no matter what happens. I could never forgive myself if--" He cut himself off, wincing, and shook his head, storming past the other man into the bath. "You must go, _now_!"

Gil had dressed quickly and without assistance, as if he was accustomed to suddenly fleeing in the night, simply throwing a trim aubergine robe over his pyjamas and stuffing his fluffy house socks into a pair of glossy oxfords, and now he followed Remus to the doorway of the bath. "Alright," he said, "I'll go, if you promise me you'll be alright," and Remus, impulsive and wolfy, leaned down to kiss him, too-rough.

"I can't," Remus said before he shut the door in his face.

When Remus came back to himself, flat on his front on white tile smeared and spattered with red, the first thing he did was vomit until he had nothing left in his gut, bringing up blood and foamy bile and thin ribbons of his own pink flesh--only his own flesh, he insisted desperately to himself though he couldn't have known. When he was finished, he scooted himself away from the mess, trembling, and tried with a woozy head to evaluate his injuries: he had a set of long gashes down one thigh, and though they weren't deep they had bled freely and made a mess. His left leg ached as if one of the two bones in the lower extremity hadn't yet aligned itself properly. Several nails were broken into the quick, with matching damage on the hastily-warded wooden door and windowframes, and he had chewed his right wrist again, deepening the already-thick pink scar tissue--here fit the chunks he had torn out of himself and swallowed. His right thumb and first two fingers were numb, and refused to move from their nerve-dead curl when he tested them. He felt weak from blood loss, and his teeth and his bones and his joints ached as they always did.

A rough, pained groan escaped him as he curled his injured hand and forearm against his chest. The wounds were deep, and blood still seeped, sapping his strength. He thought of Gil, longingly, and then he felt a sudden lance of shame that his friend would see him like this. With a shaking hand, he drew a towel down from the radiator and wrapped it as well as he could round his injured arm. Wishing he had the energy to perform a cleansing spell or at least to draw some hot water, he leaned back against the wall near the door and stared out the tall, warded windows, waiting for the light of true morning.

At some point, he slipped into sleep, or unconsciousness.

A jumble of nonsensical dreams came to him: He saw Gil in blue quidditch robes riding high on a sleek broomstick--though Remus' mind cast him as an adult, since he didn't know how to picture him as a boy. He saw a wolf and a goat, both standing on two legs as they were married properly, in a church by a vicar. He saw a phoenix carrying an engraved and painted skull in its talons, and he was oddly certain he knew the face it would wear, a young woman's face, weirdly familiar as if he'd seen a portrait of her at some point in his life. He saw his own father delivering the killing curse, with a vicious hunter's grimace behind the flash of green. And then he saw wolf-teeth, just glistening white wolf-teeth against black night, and it seemed his father's grin had become them.

He saw a messy mop of black hair, tossed by the wind, against the darkening sky.

Finally, Remus heard a broguey tenor yelp, "Jesus, Mary, and Merrlin," and then he felt a jostling, a smack across his face, stronger than necessary--

He came to with Gil shaking his shoulders and calling his name. "Remus, are you arright?"

Woozy, he gasped in a breath. "I've been worse," he choked out.

"Ah, what have you done to yourself?" Gil asked with dismay, clearly rhetorical, as he slipped his own cloak off to tuck around the trembling werewolf. "Can you stand? We ought get you to a Healer."

Remus shook his head. "They won't have the time to see to the tenth ripped-up junky werewolf of the morning--they consider it a waste of resources to help someone like me," he said, openly bitter. 

"Well _I'll_ heal you, then," Gil said, sounding determined. "I've a touch of the gift myself."

"No you haven't," Remus snapped, cross. "I've known someone who could heal, I know the feel of it." He sighed at Gil's wounded look, then. "I'm sorry," he made himself say.

"If you don't want my help..." Gil said, seeming dejected.

"I'm sorry," Remus said again, his voice dull and weary. "I don't need to be healed. I need to have something to eat and to get some sleep. Will you help me to the bed?"

Gil looked affronted, and stubborn, and hesitant.

"Please?" Remus said. "I need you."

Gil pressed his lips into a conceding pout and leaned forward to help Remus up, half-standing and half-carried on his friend's sturdy shoulder, the cloak crooked round him like a blanket. They made their way slowly to the adjacent bedroom, and Gil settled him gently in the soft sea of Alphard's blue linens. Remus asked for the medicinal-smelling balm from his suitcase, and Gil helped him to spread the stuff on the long gashes down his leg, though he kept the towel tight round his arm to keep his friend from seeing the worst of the damage.

"Will you make me some of those lovely fried eggs you do?" Remus asked after the duvet had been tucked round him, and Gil stopped petting his hair to smile at him, seeming completely placated now.

"Sure," he said, fond.

While Gil was occupied downstairs, Remus salved the wounds on his hand and forearm and wrapped the whole affair in gauze from his suitcase, and then he lay back in the nest of down pillows and sparked a Gauloise, watching the smoke writhe as it drifted up and out of the tall, half-open window above the bed.

It had been many months since he had injured himself, since he had had to go without the potion--it hadn't happened since before he'd known Gil, nearly half a year now.

He felt a fool, and a callous one, for the nebulous doubts and suspicions he had been harbouring about his friend, about the man who was even now downstairs cooking him breakfast, about his new love who stood by him even in the face of his own wicked teeth. It was no wonder Gil seemed tetchy and insecure lately, considering the way Remus had been acting.

He'd been worrying at the fragile cloth of their affair almost since their arrival in Paris, really. He'd been bitter about his memories of Sirius, unhappy in the crowded city, and threatened by the thought of that other werewolf lurking near his territory, even as he'd come too close to straying from it again. And that was to say nothing of his suspicions regarding Gil's last book--of course it was fictionalised, just as their account of his own adventures would be when it was finished. Of course the details didn't line up--Remus should have known they would have been changed to make a better story.

It was a wonder Gil hadn't already packed his things and moved on.

Remus shut his eyes and sighed, and when Gil pushed open the door with a tray of eggs and toast, he opened them and said calmly to his friend, "I think I've about had my fill of this place."

Over the next days, as he ate and slept and healed, Remus felt his wanderlust--or his fear of his impulses, whichever it was--swelling thick and choking in his throat. It had always been inevitable that they would leave Paris one day in the not-too-distant future. Gil's fame had made the crowded and cosmopolitan place a cage with too many eyes in the end, for both of them, for different reasons, and Remus hated to be caged.

They had determined to leave the city together as soon as he was recovered enough from his self-inflicted injuries to travel, though they had no specific plans yet. The idea of returning to Bucharest had been floated briefly, as had Gil's suggestion of a voyage to his own soft and pretty homeland. Though he had no settled residence there--or anywhere it seemed--he assured Remus that he had any number of homes on the isle, just as he had anyplace else.

Remus certainly wasn't prepared to return to Bucharest. 

The idea of finding peace in the countryside appealed to him, but he was unsure if Gil's homeland was the place for it, considering everything. Getting there without a travel permit would prove a challenge, and once cut off by the island's border wards, he felt he would have no place to retreat if it were necessary, and nothing productive to do there for himself. As Gil's man, he would be bound to wherever his friend called home. Of course, if he remained Gil's man, it was likely only a matter of time before he found himself in that position, if not in Ireland then someplace or other. 

He _had_ heard rumours, rare but seemingly verifiable, of a different sort of wolfman there. It seemed Ireland had harboured an entirely separate bloodline of lycanthrope since ancient days, and as intriguing as that was, he was uncertain what sort of welcome he might find among them, if he were even capable of finding them. 

He vetoed both ideas with an uneasy mind, though he had no suggestions of his own.

Lucky then, that the phoenix arrived on the third day after the full moon. Again, Remus wasn't sure what sort of luck it was.

"Well hello there, pretty," Gil said to the creature, setting his cigarette aside and leaning forward in his smoking chair on the narrow bacony. "And who do you belong to?"

Remus stepped onto the threshold next to his friend, wary. He sighed when he saw it was the same bird he knew, the same phoenix he had hoped many times never to see again. "Oh, merde," he said resignedly, stepping forward to scritch the animal's head with his uninjured hand and to take the small parcel it carried. "Hullo, Fawkes. How do you always find me?"

The bird trilled sweetly at him and accepted his caress, looking for all the world as if it was an innocent party.

"What is it?" Gil asked.

Remus sighed again, staring down at the little scroll without opening it. "I've been tapped," he said. "Preposterous timing as always, Albus," he muttered under his breath.

"What? What does that mean?"

"Come inside," Remus ordered, casual and cool, as he turned away. "Shut the door."

Gil did so. The phoenix remained where it was perched on the railing, watching them shrewdly through the glass--waiting for a response, Remus knew.

"Remus, is everything alright?"

"No," he said, honest. "Come and sit down."

When they had both taken a seat on the purple chaise longe together, Remus unfurled the letter and read it over, quickly and silently, and then he rolled it up around the small bottle contained within again, clenching the tiny parcel in his fist. "I have to tell you something," he admitted.

"Is it about your old friend?" Gil asked, clearly nervous.

Remus blinked, surprised--for once, Sirius was far from his thoughts. "N--no," he said. He cleared his throat. "Gil, I may _appear_ to be completely unemployable, but that isn't quite the case."

Mercifully, Gil said nothing about the trade Remus had abandoned upon their arrival in Paris.

"I am a member of an organisation," he began carefully, "which operates across Europe--across the world, really--in order to effect change... for the greater good. My particular services are not needed often, but when they are, I do not have the luxury of refusing."

"Your services?" Gil forced a laugh, though he looked quite worried now. "What are you, an assassin or something?" he joked lamely.

Remus looked away. "No," he said, though he had in fact been pressed to extreme measures before, and would be again. He cleared his throat. "More in the vein of Fleming," he said.

Gil frowned at him for a bare second, perhaps waiting for more information, and when it didn't come, he said, "I'm sorry--are you telling me that you're a _spy_?"

"If I don't say it, then you technically don't know it," Remus retorted with a wry smirk.

"Merrlin, we've lost the plot entirely," Gil breathed, wide-eyed. After a moment, he laughed at himself and said wonderingly, "Oh--or have we just found it?"

Remus frowned and pursed his lips.

"So what is it, then?" Gil went on, indicating the scroll Remus still clutched in one hand.

"An assignment," Remus said, still careful. "My employer occasionally has need of someone who can move among wild werewolves."

"Ah. That's what you were doing living with them, isn't it? Before we met, in Bistritz?"

Remus nodded, pleased. Despite Gil's airy-fairy manner and lazy hedonism, he really was quite clever.

"Hang on, though," Gil said then, "Aren't spies meant to be, you know--?"

Remus narrowed his eyes. Gil gestured vaguely. 

"Straight?" Remus guessed.

"Well paid!" he crowed through a startled guffaw. "I mean what were you doing--?"

"My compensation is quid pro quo," Remus said, brusque, to stop him saying it. "And I wouldn't do this any longer if I had a choice." He cleared his throat again and gestured indicatively with the small scroll to be sure Gil understood which situation he didn't want to continue before ploughing quickly on, to stop himself thinking for too long about the fact that he felt he needed to clarify, still, after all these months. "There is a small wizarding village in Yorkshire," he explained in a rush, "which is being threatened by an unknown werewolf pack. I am... asked to investigate, and to assist the townspeople, if possible."

"And you're going?"

"My employer has arranged transportation, and a cottage for me there. I am to depart as soon as possible."

Gil just stared at him, brows drawn up in the middle. "And are we still--? I mean, are you coming back?"

Remus looked troubled. "We are, most definitely, still," he said firmly. It was in his nature to be a loyal lover, he told himself, despite his rotten luck and his flighty bent. "But I never know what might happen when I'm sent on a mission like this."

"Right then, I'm coming with you," Gil said, matter-of-fact.

"Absolutely not. It would be too dangerous," Remus said immediately, in a tone which brooked no argument.

But Gil argued anyway. "Listen here, I can handle myself! What do you think all this training's been in aid of?"

Hesitant, Remus pursed his lips and let his friend keep talking, even though he knew it was a bad idea.

"Besides, I'm your chronicler--your Watson! You need me--and the book needs a bit of _real_ adventure, a proper quest to round things out." He smiled beatifically, brightly. "This is just what we've needed, you'll see."

Remus considered. It had always been a part of his arrangement with Albus that his secret must be kept secret; an agent who couldn't move in the wizarding world as easily as he could among wild werewolves would have done the old man little good. He had broken this condition before, with dear friends he had trusted, and though he had misplaced his trust in the end, Albus had never learned of it.

And now Remus was a grown man, no longer a nervous schoolboy or a fresh-faced lad just stepping into the world, and his old headmaster could only own so much of him. Albus might even be pleased if Remus had found himself a suitable partner again--Gil might even be recruited on his own merit, on the strength of the world that was opened to him by his wealth and his fame, on his burgeoning ability as a duellist.

Of course, that was exactly what had ruined Sirius, down to the letter. But then Gil was common-born and self-made and eirenically egalitarian, and he had no wicked family trying to draw him back into their mad fold--he couldn't ever have been pushed by a careless handler too far in the direction Sirius had been pushed. Remus dared hope he'd made a better choice this time.

"Aw come on," Gil cajoled him then with a charming grin. "Are we partners, or not?"

Thoughtful, tentative, Remus nodded. "It will be dangerous," he warned again.

Gil shrugged, and with his own accent poking out around the edges he sharped, "I'm after boffing a werewolf spy for half a year, I'd say it's a bit late to keep out of danger, wouldn't you?"

Remus laughed at him and conceded the point with a shrug. "In that case," he said, unwrapping the scroll and holding up the small glass phial to regard the single red nasturtium bloom suspended within, "there's something we need to do before we go, to cover our tracks. I'll need your help, if you're up for it."


	5. Dovetown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little bit of the old bait and switch, a bittersweet homecoming, and an investigation or two.

The next evening, Remus divested himself of his fine cloak and the new robes Gil had bought him, donned an old pair of corduroy trousers and a grubby muggle windbreaker he kept in the bottom of his small suitcase, and mussed his hair artfully before setting off on foot for Paris' wizarding shopping district. Gil had left the flat perhaps an hour ago to enjoy an evening meal alone at an upscale eatery for the second night in a row, and by now Remus could depart on his secret errand.

He stalked through the streets silently, with his hands in his pockets and his face turned down towards the street, though he kept his eyes moving and alert for his quarry. Finally, he came to the restaurant, where his friend was holding conspicuous court at a table by the front window, wearing his brightest and flashiest amethyst robes, calling frequently for service and chatting amicably in English with the annoyed waiters who came at his bidding, whether they understood him or not. Remus crossed the wide street and lit a cigarette, and found a spot in the alleyway near the cauldron shop where he could linger and watch the front of the establishment without being seen.

He smoked a cigarette or two or three while Gil stuffed himself on lamb and little potatoes and a full bottle of Merlot and a small fruit galette of some sort, waiting to see if his friend would attract any company. He must have taken up the table for two hours, at least. Remus cast his eyes up and down the street frequently, hoping not to be caught unawares in the very trap he was setting.

Finally, Gil leaned back in his seat and stretched his arms over his head, sated. Remus saw him check his pocketwatch, drop a generous handful of coin onto the table, and gather himself to his feet, and soon he was stepping out of the restaurant, calling a loud farewell in English to the wait staff and waving broadly over his head.

He paused on the darkening street with his arms akimbo and his purple robes spread out behind him by his crook'd elbows, and peered thoughtfully up and down the street for some moments as if he was waiting for someone--or, Remus reflected with sudden clarity, as if he was searching the busy street for someone who looked as if they were the sort who would take gold in return for companionship.

Of course it seemed he didn't see Remus where he lurked.

After a short time, seeming disappointed, Gil set off at a casual stroll in what seemed a randomly-chosen direction.

Remus tailed him past wizarding shops and through the small park, up the broad avenue and out of La Place Cachée, where he turned north, towards the run-down quarter inhabited by those witches and wizards who hadn't heaps of gold from a publisher's advance to spend and an inherited Rive Gauche flat to moon about in.

Gil found a small and bustling café there and sat himself at an outdoor table to sip a digestif and smoke and watch the brightest of the summer stars come out against the light-polluted city sky, and Remus found a sheltered alcove by a door and slumped himself in it with his collar up and his hair over his face.

It was nearing midnight when Gil, slurring perhaps too-conspicuously from the wine and the sweet liquor, thanked the proprietor and found his feet again, and Remus was beginning to think their second night of this charade would be as much a waste as the first. But when Gil set off south again, alone and weaving a little on his feet, Remus saw a shadow detach itself from the corner of the café wall and move towards him with a fluid, seductive gait.

Remus watched as Gil stopped and turned to the fellow with a bright smile. A few soft words were exchanged, he saw Gil nod approvingly and pat at his coin purse, and then the stranger stepped smoothly alongside him and they began to stroll together towards Alphard's flat, like old friends.

Remus smiled, grim, and followed at a distance.

Gil led the stranger along the same path back towards the river, passing through the small, dimly-lit garden park near the wizarding high street again. Remus' heart fluttered with alarm--or jealousy, or the thrill of the chase--as he saw the pair slip together into the little patch of shadowed green and autumn gold, and he quickened his pace to intercept them.

They were counting on the noise of the city disguising the muffled _pop_ of the spell, and so it did, but as Remus neared he felt the resonant echo of Gil's disapparation thanks to their attunement, and he knew all was proceeding apace.

His smile became more wicked, a hunter's smile, and he stepped silently up behind the other werewolf, who stood in the centre of the walkway through the small park, looking around himself in confusion.

"Good evening," Remus said to him quietly in French. "Up to no good?"

The black and silver fellow whirled, startled. " _You_ ," he accused hotly. He narrowed his eyes, clearly trying to think quickly, and then he smiled seductively and stepped close again. "One last chance to share the prize," he said, desperate to hit upon some combination of word and deed that would allow him to ally himself with or to use someone, in some capacity. "Come, we'll lose him if we don't move quickly!"

Remus suddenly felt a much greater contempt for the other werewolf. He may have been stealthy and ruthless, but on closer acquaintance it was clear he wasn't as clever--or as attractive--as he thought he was. His plans mustn't have come through often, if ever.

The fellow really wasn't much like Sirius at all, once one got down to it.

"That's not happening," Remus said. He reached out with his wand-hand and caught the other werewolf's wrist in nimble, steely fingers. "He's not my quarry tonight."

The other werewolf's eyes widened. He tried to pull away physically, trying to wrench his arm out of Remus' grasp--he had expected magical resistance, had suspected the black and silver fellow might even try to apparate away despite the physical contact. But he hadn't expected this simple and ineffectual brute resistance.

He wasn't even trying to cast.

Ignoring the pain in his injured forearm and the stiffness of his still-numb fingers, Remus reached out with a quick hand and caught the fellow's other wrist, feeling for a spark and still finding none. "You can't cast at all, can you?" he said, surprised. But the other werewolf couldn't have been bit as a child or he'd be taller and bonier and more monstrous by now, more marked by the lupine mutations that slowly changed all of their kind. And how had he pulled off his disappearing act on the train, if he hadn't disapparated? But what Remus felt against his palms now was undeniable. "You were _un moldu_ before you were bit," he realised, using the French word. Remus knew it was exceedingly rare--but not quite impossible--for a muggle to survive the initial illness of infection.

The black and silver fellow curled his lips back in a snarl, but he no longer resisted. " _Cracmol_ ," he corrected, seeming ashamed. So he was a born squib then, not a wizard who'd lost his magic young to atrophy, not the victim of an education denied.

A hell of a way to get a taste of magic, Remus thought, grim.

He nodded his understanding and said, "That will make this much easier for me." Then, wordless and wandless, he cast in quick succession _petrificus totalus_ and _levicorpus_ against the skin of other werewolf's forearms, so that the fellow froze in place and his feet slipped up off the pavement. Remus anchored him with a secure grip on one wrist and said, "You'll be pleased to hear I'm taking you home with me."

Ignoring the fear in the other werewolf's eyes, Remus twisted in place, tugging him side-along between space to the other side of the river, where he touched down nimbly on Alphard's rooftop terrace.

Like a choreographed dance, Gil--who really wasn't drunk at all thanks to his sturdy constitution--opened the tall windows for him as soon as he materialised, and Remus slipped quickly into the darkened library room, pulling the black and silver fellow along behind him like a balloon on a string.

He spun the other werewolf into the centre of the room and let him float there, silent and frozen, as Gil shut and latched the tall windows and drew the curtains closed, sealing them inside the deep darkness of the abandoned-seeming flat.

Remus saw surprise and betrayal register in the other werewolf's eyes when Gil stepped forward to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him in the dim blue twilight. He grinned smugly. "Don't worry," he said. "We have no intention of harming you, and this will all be over quite soon."

Gil drew his wand.

"Before we get on with it," Remus went on, secretly savouring the fellow's obvious apprehension, "I want to make it absolutely clear what's happening here." He stepped closer, met the other werewolf's eyes levelly though he addressed Gil for the sake of rhetoric. "This man has been following us since we met on the train," he said. "He thinks that I'm using you."

"Dreadful business," Gil said, prim, as the other werewolf's eyes darted back and forth between his captors.

"Twice now, he has suggested that I might prefer his company, that he and I could use you together."

"How perfectly scandalous."

"Now that he knows I haven't a taste for criminals, he's been trying to hook you himself."

Gil laughed now, mocking in his tone. "Didn't know what he was getting himself in fer, did he?" he drawled, tapping the tip of his golden-red wand meditatively against his chin. "Whatever shall we do about it?"

Remus stepped back from the petrified fellow, taking his place at Gil's side again. "I'm sure you can think of something, my dear," he said, finally turning his eyes back to his friend.

Gil leaned close and smiled up at him and, feeling quite impulsive and wicked and knowing it wouldn't matter if he let the secret slip just this once, Remus bent his head down to allow his friend to kiss him chastely, the affectionate peck of a longtime lover. Remus glanced smugly towards the other werewolf when they parted, and then he turned his back on the scene, keeping his eyes on the green baize surface of the large writing desk.

"Terribly sorry to interrupt your itinerary," Gil said, "but you simply can't be allowed to interrupt ours again."

Remus saw the flash of the spell pass through the room and turned back to help his friend complete it. "Regarding the train that brought you to Paris some months ago," he began. "You spent the entire journey in your compartment because you were worried that you might be recognised as a werewolf. You didn't meet anyone worth remembering or see anything interesting during those days. You've never been near this flat before. You've just been going for walks along the Seine. When we release you, you will go about your normal business and forget about us both entirely."

He released the body-bind, dropping the other werewolf unceremoniously onto the red Persian carpet that filled the centre of the library floor. The fellow staggered, but managed to catch himself, and before he could react, Remus stepped forward again, snatched his wrist in long fingers again, and spun in place again. He slipped them out of the flat and back across the river to the park-like cemetery where he himself had so recently been accosted, fast and breathless. He let the other werewolf slip from his grip without touching down himself, so that the fellow came out of the space between space in a tumbling roll on the paved walkway between crypts, coughing and sputtering, and found himself alone and unsure what had happened when he hauled himself to his feet and looked round.

The next evening, as the autumn sunset faded, Remus drew all the drapes and _noxxed_ all the lights and banished the last of the rubbish from the bins in the kitchen and the bath before he walked round the place one final time to be sure he hadn't forgot anything. Gil packed the last of his belongings into the last of his trunks and left them neatly stacked in Alphard's bedroom, all but one, which he had carried into the library with his hand valise full of writing supplies, alongside Remus, who carried his small suitcase and wore his green cloak which no longer seemed so new.

Remus opened the small glass phial Fawkes had brought and dropped the red bloom of nasturtium onto the centre of the newly-emptied writing desk. He capped the phial and set it down, tapped the glass stopper with his wand three times, and then tapped the green baize surface of the desk three times, conjuring a replica of the vessel.

"Did you find something suitable?" he murmured softly to his friend.

"Of course," Gil said with a grin, unpinning from his lapel a single dried bloom of lavender, slightly crushed, which he had ripped open a sachet from one of his trunks to salvage--a fitting enough choice, and of course he would have a dried specimen squirrelled away in this season, considering his fondness for the scent.

Remus nodded. "It will do," he said. He held out a palm, and Gil set the bloom into it carefully.

He cleared his throat, pursed his lips, and began the casting.

He was aware of Gil watching him with an enchanted smile as he worked, flicking his wand about the corners of the room and speaking the words of the binding below his breath. As the spell swelled in his palm, the dried raceme plumped with life again, darkening in colour and knitting back together along the crackled edges of the small flowers, until it looked alive again.

When Remus was finished, his friend uncapped the second phial for him and held it out, and he dropped the lavender into it. Gil slipped it into his waistcoat pocket with a grin. Remus grinned back at him and pocketed the empty phial.

"Are you ready?" he asked Gil, taking up his suitcase again with his good hand.

"When am I ever not?" his friend said with a wink.

Remus smiled at him, and as one, the two men reached out together, each setting a finger neatly upon one of the nasturtium's petals at the same moment.

When they touched down with a dull thud on the soft grass outside the dooryard of the cottage, Remus sucked in a startled snoutful of the familiar scent of home--reddening blackberry leaves, chill wet mist, the furry green grass and loamy black earth of moor and dale, all like a slap in the face. He turned to catch the nasturtium portkey in a gentle _leviosa_ and steered it back into the phial before he straightened and looked around himself, and took a deeper breath.

The sunlight was all but gone, as it had been in Paris when they'd engaged the portkey, soft peachy purple that would soon become the silver of twilight, and the air here was colder, carrying with it the wet ozone smell that spoke of morning frost. The high ridge upon which the vine-wracked cottage was perched overlooked soft dales far below on one side, a treacherous drop into unkempt-looking woods and brambles on the other. 

Remus knew the place at once, from his days of desperate spycraft during the war, and he felt uneasy coming here again.

Unsettled, he met Gil's eyes and nodded towards the open gate of the walled dooryard.

As they approached the cottage, a familiar old man with a long, grey beard stepped out into the sheltered dooryard and regarded them both with amusement in the rectangle of yellow firelight that fell upon them from within. "Remus," he said with a smile. "I see you got Fawkes' message. I'd have come to see you myself, but you know I don't like the city."

"Few of us do, Aberforth," Remus told the older werewolf. "How's the wife?"

He laughed, wry, and stretched his crooked back. "Oh, she's still in fine form for her age, thanks for asking. She does keep the hooves during the day by now, but at least it saves on shoes. Haven't found anything, have you?"

Remus shook his head. "I am sorry," he said. "Give her my best."

The old man nodded. "She'll be pleased to hear you're well."

Remus smiled fondly for a moment before he sobered. "As pleasant as this is, I assume you're my brief?"

Aberforth nodded again and grunted an affirmative before he stepped to the side to clear the doorway. "Come in, lads," he said, gruff.

Remus indicated to Gil that he should step in first, and Gil obeyed without hesitation.

"So _this_ is the travelling companion you wrote about?" Aberforth asked when they had set down their bags at the door and moved into the small, rough front room of the cottage, pointing with dubious eyes towards Gil.

Remus smiled coolly and a bit dangerously at the old man. "Make yourself at home, Gil," he said to his friend though he held the old man's gaze. "This is where we'll be staying."

Aberforth grunted an acknowledgement. "We should speak privately," he said then, brusque. "Sh'll'we leave your assistant to get settled?"

Gil's eyebrows shot towards his blond curls and he gave Remus a sharp look of appeal, but Remus ignored the injustice and turned towards the door with Aberforth.

"Lovely to meet you," Gil called primly and a bit ironically as they stepped out.

"Odd couple, aren't you?" the old man said to Remus with a wry twist of his lips when they were alone in the dooryard.

Remus shrugged at the old wolf-man. "Frankly, he amuses me."

"Far be it for me to judge," Aberforth said, "but Albus will want to know what you're about."

"I am aware of the impression he gives," Remus said with a placid smile. "Why do you think I brought him along?"

Aberforth cocked an eyebrow at him.

"A bored, rich author, travelling to the countryside for inspiration with his faithful assistant? It makes a perfect cover story," Remus pointed out, "for a lot of the things Albus would have me get up to, in fact."

"And for a lot of the things you get up to on your own time, it would seem."

Remus huffed a voiceless, breathy laugh and shrugged, able to come close to admitting it, considering the company.

"Anyhow, I hope you know what you're doing, exposing someone like that to this kind of danger."

"He's made of sterner stuff than he seems. A lot of us are, you ought to know that." He wasn't speaking of werewolves, this time.

Aberforth grunted again, noncommittal. "He's on your account," he said, still dubious--probably the closest to an approval of Remus' plan the old fellow could give without conferring with his brother.

Remus nodded his understanding. He brought out his packet of Gauloises and offered one to the older werewolf. Aberforth declined, and they began to stroll aimlessly away from the cottage, to give themselves room to speak of secret things. "As to my compensation...?" Remus prompted after a few drags, a few dozen paces.

"As usual, you'll have wolfsbane every month until this is dealt with. And the cottage is yours, now. Albus has arranged for it to pass to you when he--" The older man made a gruesome gesture.

Remus cocked an eyebrow, surprised. It could mean only one thing: the old man wanted him close at hand and grateful on an indefinite basis, but to what end? Simply to keep the wolves back from the doors of one insignificant little village? Surely not. This was a convenient enough excuse to get him back to England, but this village couldn't be Albus' true priority, not unless there was some other secret or asset here that needed protecting. After a moment, he said, "I want an owl at my disposal and a foe-glass for the house."

"I'll see what I can do," Aberforth said, reaching into a pocket for a pair of iron keys on a plain, old-fashioned ring. He held them out in offer--the price the Dumbledores set on the remaining lifespan of a once-runaway agent.

Merlin, what _had_ he just walked back into here?

He cleared his throat. "And I assume I am still free to travel for my research?" he said, cool. "It _is_ still a priority for yourself and Beatrice?"

"Of course it is," the old man said, though he was grim-faced and distant. "But Albus is preparing for something. He's gathering the old crowd."

Remus nodded his understanding. "I'll come when I'm called," he conceded. "And I shall be happy to stay in this cottage, whenever I am needed here at home. Albus will have to make do with that."

Aberforth nodded. "Once this assignment is over--as long as you maintain contact--I'll see that you're free to move as you please. For now." He extended the keys towards Remus again.

Remus pursed his lips and nodded back, curt, and reached out to take them. "So, what's happening here?" 

"We've been onto this for some time," Aberforth explained. "Your father came through here last month."

"Don't call him that," Remus said, cold.

Aberforth regarded him with a sardonic expression. "As you will. 'My brother's favourite werewolf hunter' came through here last month, how's that?" he drawled. "Anyhow," he went on, with a nod out over the dales to the east of the high and treacherous ridge on which the cottage was perched, "there was a missing boy down in the village."

Remus felt his jaw clench involuntarily.

"Was taken on the full moon, and strange beasts have been spotted hereabouts for years, so the locals reckoned it was a werewolf and called him in."

"And let me guess: he kicked a pixie's nest, and I'm here to clean up his mess?"

Aberforth grunted a rough affirmative again, this time nodding in the opposite direction, towards the steep drop and the deep woods beyond, to the west. "He uncovered a whole pack living rough out there. Thinks they've been responsible for people going missing in the area. No confirmed infections or deaths--aside from the boy--but it stands to reason."

"And this," Remus said, realising it as he spoke, "is one of the places where Greyback was active, years ago." He cleared his throat. "Isn't it?"

Aberforth noddded. "Albus thinks this is likely more your department than your father's," he said.

Remus scowled blackly. So this was a large and well-organised pack of sane wolfmen following an agenda, not a few half-mad beasts preying upon the fringes of the flock, nor a single out-of-control maniac acting from perverted instinct. A job for a spy and a diplomat, not for a beasthunter. "What happened to him?" he asked.

"Your father? He's fine," Aberforth said, dismissive. "Gone off the scrying stone again, though. Last we knew he was lying low with some fortune-teller in Marrakech."

"Sounds about right," Remus drawled, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice.

Aberforth sighed. "Albus wants an eye on this pack until they move on, and it can't be me," he said, sombre. After a moment he continued, "You're to find an in, find out if Greyback is here, or if they know him. You'll report to me on their movements. Try to bring some of them in line with our cause. Stop them infecting anyone else if you can."

"I understand."

Aberforth nodded, curt. "I'll leave you to it then." The older werewolf drew his wand and prepared to disapparate. "Floo at the inn if you need anything," he added.

Remus straightened his shoulders and gave a nod, and Aberforth made himself scarce.

He was left alone some distance from the cottage on the high sweep of grass, and as he walked back towards the open dooryard gate, he took slow and careful inventory of the changes in the place since he had seen it last. The dooryard was overgrown now and the tidy garden ruined, and the stand of messy cypress that had lined one edge of the long, high ridge had been cleared away, lending a new view over the forest and bramble below. From the brief glimpse he'd had, the furnishings within must have been almost entirely replaced, the eccentric decor and equipment cleared away to make room for unremarkable wooden necessities. But it was the same cottage. 

This was Keener's Ridge. The village below could be none other than Dovetown.

Stood in front of the door now with his mouth pressed into a grim line, he cast a quick gout of blue flame in one upstretched hand, so that he could see the wooden lintel above the door, and the surname carved there, neatly if artlessly: one of the false names his own father had used to use.

He took a final drag of his cigarette to steady himself before he banished the end with a sparking snap. He stepped forward, moved his upraised hand to touch the old oaken beam, and cast a softly-glowing _reparo_ against the surface of the wood, obliterating the letters.

When Remus reentered the cottage, he found that Gil had set their bags in the small bedroom behind the chimney and was occupied in the kitchen at one end of the small home, industriously and smugly laying a cold supper from the provisions in the pantry and the cooling-cupboard. Aberforth had stayed here for some days gathering intel, and had stocked the place for them, though it seemed there wasn't much Remus could readily eat aside from the toothy bread and the red cheese and the bright apples already resting in a basket on the table.

"What is it?" Gil asked when he saw Remus' grave expression. "Is something wrong?"

"No, it's nothing," Remus said, shaking his head to school his frown away. He smiled at his friend then, convincingly, he hoped. "Welcome home," he said with a touch of irony.

Gil shrugged and took him at his word. "Not _my_ home," he said, cheeky.

"Fair."

The two shared a smile. "Right so am I _touched_ , or was that the publican from the Hog's Head?" Gil asked then with a smirk, passing him a bottled ale.

"Yeah," Remus said, offering no further explanation as he twisted the stopper off. 

Gil laughed and shook his head and put his R.P. back on and said, "Alright then. And will our friend be joining us?" He gave Remus a mock-guilty grimace and a wave towards the food. "I figured since he was so very charming and polite he'd be happy offering a bit of hospitality." 

"He's gone. The place is all ours." He looked away and cleared his throat. "I am sorry it isn't up to your usual standards," he said of the small cottage with its rough-hewn walls and meagre furnishings, low-cielinged and bare-timbered and heated only by the large fireplace and the exposed walls of the chimney.

Gil waved away the apology. "Ah, you've no idea what're my standards, darling," he said with a grin. He took a swig of his own bottled ale then, and said, "So, what's the plan?"

"Eh?" Remus said. "Oh, I suppose we'll go into town tomorrow. We oughtn't to make too much a spectacle of ourselves, but we do need it spread around that there are a couple of new wizards in the area. Perhaps I'll make some indiscreet inquiries at the apothecary and see if anything shakes loose."

"You're _trying_ to get the other werewolves' attention?" Gil asked. "Wouldn't you normally rather keep yourself quiet, have the element of surprise?"

Remus shook his head and frowned, thoughtful. "It is... not an advantage in this situation," he said at length.

"Huh," Gil said to himself. "Alright, so you get the werewolves to notice you. And what then?"

"Then," Remus said with a shrug, "we see what happens."

Gil shook his head to himself, wonderingly. "You are a wild ride, Lupin."

Remus smiled at his friend and tore off a heel of bread. "That's true enough."

The next morning, after again staring speculatively at himself in the mirror for a few moments, Remus straightened his shoulders and stiffened his wrists and his upper lip, and pushed his hair back to make himself look older and more sombre. No need to shave; without the moustache and the mannerisms, the few days growth of beard looked downright rugged. His old robes would do, the ones that looked perpetually just-out-of-fashion here, perfectly suited to a sleepy village in the North country.

He sighed and made uneasy eye contact with his reflection for a moment. The other Remus gave him a wry purse of the lips, a shrug in brief, and he returned it, amused, before he turned to leave the small bath.

When he found Gil in the small, warm kitchen, humming happily if tunelessly to himself over a pan of mushrooms in butter, the other man regarded him with wide eyes and a smitten smirk.

"Oh, this place is going to be good for us," Gil said. "I'm sure of it."

Remus smiled and poured himself a coffee and took a seat at the small table, cradling the warm drink against his still gauze-wrapped right hand. The yellow wooden surface was marred by years of knife marks and singe, and he traced a long scratch with a half-numb finger before he cleared his throat and said, "Gil, there's something important we must discuss."

"And what's that?" his friend said over his shoulder, unconcerned, as he flipped the last egg onto a plate.

Remus waited until Gil set their breakfast down and seated himself before he spoke, fixing his friend with a serious gaze. "I must insist that, if we are to write about this part of our time together, we must be very careful what details we reveal. We may need to change things quite a bit to protect the Order."

Frowning thoughtfully, Gil nodded. "If it's that important to you," he said. He took up his knife and fork and began to hash his eggs and toast together.

"It isn't that it's important to _me_ ," Remus said carefully. "But if the location of this pack were revealed, or if it were possible to guess the identity of any other agents, it could endanger the Order, or its mission. I cannot allow that to happen. Now that you have become entangled in this, _you_ cannot allow it either. The consequences could be dire."

"Well," Gil said around a bite, apparently unconcerned, "we could set it abroad, of course." He swallowed and went on, "A charming little village in Normandy, perhaps? We'll leave out that it's a job, set up the narrator to travel there after the Paris chapters, and then he'll just to happen to run into--" He shrugged expansively. "--the story."

"Do you know anything about Normandy?" Remus asked him, spearing a mushroom awkwardly on his fork.

Gil shrugged. "What's to know? The focus will be on the action." After a moment, he smiled with boyish charm and said, "We can always go there next--treat ourselves to a little research trip?"

Remus conceded the point with a fond smile, and the two ate in content, companionable silence for some minutes. He watched his friend as he ate, the way he moved his hands, his charming smile, the way his blue eyes shone in the sunlight through the window.

It was a good morning. Things had been _good_ for some days now.

A short time later, Gil was dressed in a set of conservatively-cut robes in fawn-grey woollen suiting and the third waistcoat he had tried on, his heavy watch-chain in place and his shoes gleaming, ready to make himself look a bit of a flash Southern git loose in the dales.

"How are we getting to the village?" he asked.

Remus shrugged as he wound an old knit scarf round his neck. "We'll have to walk."

Gil made a face.

"I can't apparate without a focus," Remus said, "And we can't floo in if we don't know the local pub."

"What, Mister Hog's Head didn't brief you on that?" he sniped, a bit sour.

"We must maintain our cover." Remus said, cool, as he slung on his cloak and fastened its clasp one-handed. "We've just arrived from London, staying at a friend's cottage--how else would we get to a village we've neither of us seen before?" He smirked sideways at the other man. "On broomstick?"

Gil shrugged and said it would have been nice, and Remus smiled and reminded him they hadn't any brooms, and helped him to settle his own deep aubergine cloak round his shoulders so that the pleats fell just so.

The village was about an hour's walk along muggle roads through gently rolling hills, no great hardship for two men accustomed to rambling through foreign cities, but it was a chill and breath-fogging morning. They followed the old and crumbling road which passed the cottage and led down to one end of the long, steep-sided ridge, crossing a muggle-made cattle grate where the ground narrowed to hug each side of the track. From here, the road hairpinned to the east and steeply down, and Remus smiled at Gil, ruddy-cheeked and jolly, as they bounced rapidly along it. As they descended into the dales, the crests of the hills rose around them like the backs of great, green beasts, until they felt the world around them might as well have narrowed to the space between one furred body and another.

Finally, the village appeared ahead and a little below them, nestled in the curving valley between two hills. Like the cottage, it had changed since Remus had last seen it, not in any large way, but in small details: the flower shop on the corner now sold brightly-coloured women's underthings, the centre street pub had a new name and its windows and door had been repainted in blue, not green, the benches along the common had been replaced. Only the small chapel and its yard of neglected-looking graves seemed unchanged--down to the scruffy old black dog who perpetually slept between the gateposts, oddly enough. Remus felt justified in his secrecy: It would have been risky to apparate in with so outdated a focus on the village street. He might have managed it alone if necessary, but it would have been a stretch with his friend side-along, and he had a feeling Gil would have insisted he try if he'd let on that he knew the place after all.

Beside him, Gil beamed with delight at the charming vista, oblivious and unbothered. As they passed the gateposts and crossed the area in front of the common, he said, "So, where to first?"

"Too early for the pub," Remus mused. "We'll stop at the market first."

The middle-aged witch who sold them groceries was modestly curious about the new wizards in town, inquiring politely as to where they were staying and how long they planned to remain. Her mother, a frumpy old matron with iron-grey curls who was occupied in stocking the displays, popped her head up over a shelf and regarded Gil with narrowed eyes for a moment when he mentioned he was working on a book, and thereafter Remus felt quite certain that a number of hushed conversations were being conducted in feminine voices just outside their range of hearing. This sensation would not pass until they were alone again.

He tried not to show any reaction as Gil paid for the food, as the younger witch packed up their purchases and handed them over with a flirtatious smile.

Next, Remus strolled into the apothecary while Gil smoked in the street.

"Hiya!" the girl chirped brightly from where she stood behind the counter, back to the door and potion bottles clinking before her. "What's your pleasure?"

Remus cleared his throat. "I need some essence of arnica, please."

She whirled, startled by the unfamiliar voice. Her hair was sable black and fell in a wild mass of waves, and her blue-shadowed skin and sculpted bone structure gave her the look of a witch of the old Fey blood--she could have been one of Sirius' pretty cousins. "Oh hullo," she said, with the taut and familiar expression of a person trying not to show their shock at the scars across his face. "Don't think we've met."

"No," Remus said.

She stuck a hand out to shake. "Nellie."

"My name is Remus," he said, a little stiff, as he took it awkwardly and wrong-handed.

"New in town?"

He nodded. "I'm staying at Keener's Ridge, with my employer, while he finishes his latest novel." Then, almost an afterthought, he held up his bandaged hand. "I'll need some lanolin ointment as well, please."

"Want me to have a look at that?" she asked, reaching towards him.

"No thank you," Remus said immediately, too-brusque and too-firm, as he pulled his hand away and tucked it against himself. "It's nothing. I'll have the arnica and the ointment, please."

"Of course." But she eyed him sideways as she gathered his purchases into a small parcel and tied it with twine. "What happened, can I ask?"

Remus cleared his throat. "Dog bite," he said, terse.

"Hunh," Nellie said, bland, handing over the medicines. "Happen about a week ago, did it? Three galleons four."

He feigned surprise. "Er-- ab--about that?" he mock-stammered as he handed over a clumsy palmful of coin. "How did you guess?"

She narrowed her green eyes and huffed an ironic breath of a laugh at him. "Just lucky," she said. "Welcome to stop back if you need anything else for that, I'm well supplied here."

He cleared his throat. "I must be going," he ground out, breaking eye contact. "Thank you for your help." He cleared his throat again and nodded his parting at her, turning away to step quickly out of the shop.

He dropped the act, straightening his gaze and steadying his hands as soon as the door was shut behind him, to find that Gil had put out his smoke and was standing on the kerb in front of the former florist, holding court over a trio of local grannies who appeared to be led by the matron from the market. When he saw Remus emerge from the apothecary, he made his excuses and departed backward with a gentlemanly half-bow to cross the street to him.

"Luncheon at the pub?" he suggested with a self-satisfied smirk, and Remus smiled and led the way to the place now christened _The Thirteenth Bell_.

"You're from here, aren't you?" Gil asked him a while later, over his lunch of tender beef and pudding made from the drippings.

"Near to here," Remus said, truthfully enough. "We left when I was still a small child." He poked at his unappetising salad. "I spent some time in the area when I was a young man, after leaving school. During the war," he added, though he hadn't really meant to.

Gil watched him carefully, not speaking.

Remus pushed his salad away from himself. "Pardon me--may I have some chips, please?" he said to the plump blonde serving-witch as she passed by.

She nodded distractedly and went into the back.

"Did you spend any time here in Dovetown?" Gil asked.

"We would have passed through the area at times," Remus admitted, careful to be precise. "But I wouldn't have come into the village much at all." He sipped at his pint, and Gil lifted his own, mirroring him without realising it. "Thank you," he said to the serving-witch a moment later, as she levitated a plate of fat chips towards him.

Gil seemed deep in thought now, sawing at his meat with a pensive crease in his brow. "You were working with--ahem-- _our subjects_ , even back then?"

Remus nodded and focused very intently on his potatoes. "I hadn't much choice. I'll tell you more about it later," he murmured with a slight nod towards the witch who had retreated behind the nearby bar. "But it mustn't go into the book."

Gil nodded and busied himself with his food, though he still looked lost in thought. Sometime later, he asked, "What was your family like?"

Remus shrugged. "I'm not sure how to answer that," he said.

"Well, you know, did you have a lot of brothers and sisters? Were you happy? Did you live in a big house?"

"Ah," Remus said. He cleared his throat and paused, considering--he had dreaded a moment like this since they'd first left Bucharest together, had feared that his friend might one day go poking after fortunes or status that didn't exist. Now that the moment was here, it felt mundane and ordinary, like any other offhand question. "No," he answered after a moment, honest and anticlimactic.

Gil watched him, seeming to expect more.

"Why?" Remus asked, again focusing intently on his chips.

"Oh, just..." He trailed off, thoughtful. "I was thinking it might be nice to give the protagonist a bit of history, I suppose."

"What about you?" Remus asked.

"Eh?"

"What was your childhood like? It's very likely a more wholesome source of inspiration than mine."

Gil grimaced and shook his head. "Ah, no, it wouldn't track," he said. He refused to elaborate when Remus questioned him, except to insist that an English audience wouldn't find it sympathetic or relatable, and neatly turned the conversation to their hypothetical voyage to Normandy.

Remus agreed it would be a lovely thing to do--when and if he found himself again free of his duties here--but he was uncomfortable giving any commitment to the plan yet.

Gil seemed distracted, lost in thought.

Later, after they strolled out of the pub together and apparated with synchronised pops back to the dooryard gate on Remus' high ridge, Gil turned to him and said, as if just putting it together himself, "They've got something on you. They have, haven't they?"

Remus paused in the process of unlocking the door. "Who," he drawled, purest deflection.

"You know who." He set a hand on Remus' forearm, carefully, above the mangled wrist. "If you don't want to be here, we can go." He patted his waistcoat pocket. "They couldn't stop us." 

Remus turned to meet his friend's eyes, then looked away to focus on the door once more. "I don't know what you mean," he said, pushing it open and stepping inside.

The owl arrived the next day. It was one of the school owls, a surly old male who puffed his feathers and glared hatefully at Remus when he tried to take the small package the bird clutched in one talon. The creature hopped one-footed from the open window ledge onto the old writing desk near the door, wooting softly at Gil for comfort.

"Aw," he said, scritching the creature's head, "Did the mean old werewolf scare you? And give me that--" He snatched the parcel before the owl could think twice and tossed it to Remus, who caught it neatly in his good hand.

The owl nipped at Gil's finger in retaliation--he yelped and swatted it lightly. "I'm gonna call you Lestrade," he told it in a murderous undertone.

Lestrade appeared indifferent.

Inside the parcel were two small objects: a palm-sized mirror in a round tortoiseshell frame, much like the ones Remus and the other boys had used to use to communicate over distance, except that the glass looked upon a lack of landscape which was foggy and grey and indistinct. When Remus looked into it, he saw a multitude of far-off and blurred-out shadows, the silhouettes of wizards and witches crouched in what must have been corners, pacing small circles, rocking on their heels as they clutched their own arms round themselves, lying listless--the spectres of the men and women he had helped to put in Azkaban, no doubt, and one of them must have been Sirius. Nothing at all to be gained from watching them.

But as he turned the glass round the room he saw, much closer, looming much larger, a dark figure overtaking the frame. Remus couldn't make out any details, but it must have been that some villainous werewolf he had known before, possibly Greyback himself, was lurking in the woods not far from here.

The second object was a small glass sphere, rather like a marble or a gobstone. When Remus held it in his hand a flush of red lit the centre and spread outward until it seemed to glow and tremble in his palm. He didn't know what it meant, and it unsettled him, though he didn't know why. He pocketed it and put it out of his mind.

"Here," he said to Gil, passing him the foe-glass. "Keep it with you all the time. Whenever you're at home alone, keep it out, where you can see it easily."

"What is it?" Gil asked, taking it and peering dubiously into it.

"It shows your enemies. The larger and closer they appear, they nearer they are to you."

Gil's eyes widened. "Do I have to know a person is my enemy for it to work?" he asked.

Remus shook his head. "It detects ill will directed towards the person who possesses it," he said. "The, er, enemy in question _would_ have to know that they intend you harm, I suppose," he added as an afterthought.

He nodded, seeming unsettled, and tucked the mirror carefully into his waistcoat pocket next to the small glass phial which held his bloom of lavender, giving it a pat to show that it was secure. 

Over the next weeks, Remus made frequent visits to Dovetown, often with Gil along. Soon they were both known by name at The Thirteenth Bell, and familiar with its proprietor, a surly but friendly-enough fellow called Madoc. A number of ladies seemed to have struck up ongoing one-sided flirtations with Gil--they were obliged to stop frequently on their walks to exchange news and winks with young mothers or old nans, and turned down no shortage of invitations to supper or tea.

Gil's fame made him a bit of a spectacle, let alone his dapper robes, but they won a bit of privacy by swearing each admirer--or group of admirers--to separate secrecy about the upcoming book which had led them to seek quiet in the country. Of course they were under no illusion that the ladies didn't gossip, but it led to a respectable attempt to _appear_ not to be gossiping, at least in front of them.

One afternoon, after again suggesting to staunch refusal that she might examine his still-healing hand, Nellie offered Remus wolfsbane potion in so many words. He feigned startlement and then unconvincing ignorance, and made his excuses to rejoin Gil at the sweet shop next door.

They always returned home from the village together, alone, smiling secretly at one another.

Some days, Remus walked up the ridge road to the north, to the place at the other end of the rise where the track crossed another cattle grate before it jackknifed down a steep and rocky incline into the wild woods. Here, the road petered out, as if it had been too much effort to maintain a hundred years ago or more, and became a deer track until it ran into the bed of a brook and was lost under the water.

He moved quietly and easily, his form disguised by his green cloak and drab robes, searching the woods for any sign of the werewolves, or of their camp, and allowing signs of his own to drop in his wake. He stopped occasionally to take his prick out and piss against the trunk of an oak tree, he left shoe prints in the banks of the brook, he bent twigs to mark the places where he turned from the trails.

He'd had no luck yet, aside from occasional prints and scents much like the ones he left. After a time, he began to feel as if the other werewolves must have known he was in the area, might have been avoiding him intentionally.

When he trekked back up the ridge in the evenings, he was glad to find a smiling face and a warm meal awaiting him.

The nights became colder, and the fire in their humble new hearth grew brighter and warmer. Gil wrote less, it seemed, for much of the tale was finished. He said he was awaiting inspiration from his dear muse--meaning Remus, of course--before he could put the final flourish on their narrator's daring tale. Instead, he spent his time reading to gather liftable ideas and turns of phrase, answering fanmail from the cache of letters he had saved from Paris, and making elaborate rituals of tea by the fire. He was charmingly distracted by his busywork, and seemed unaffected by the decline in luxury of their surroundings, beyond insisting on transfiguring the old cushions into more luxurious poufs in lilac and cream. They always turned back after a few days, stubborn and uncaring.

When they stayed in together he often wore pyjamas and his fluffy new dressing gown or one of Remus' old jumpers all day, and his golden wire-rim specs stayed balanced on his nose. It lent him a cosy and domestic air, and much time was spent sitting very near one another without ever quite surrendering the pretence of not-cuddling.

Remus felt himself warming and softening towards his friend again, and he regretted his myriad suspicions and his frequent foul mood, back in Paris. He tried not to think of it. Gil was right, he told himself: the country would be good for them.

There were no wicked associations of Sirius in this cottage, and as time went by it was becoming easier to set aside the memories that haunted him. That ghost bothered him much less often, these days.

One cold and early-darkening night, after a simple supper at the pub and a leisurely walk up and down the town street in the first scant snow of the season, they apparated back to the ridge and passed through Remus' carefully-set wards, laughing softly over some small joke as they entered the dark cottage. For the first time in some months, it struck Remus that they were conducting themselves like schoolboys sneaking past a master again, though there was no one here to see them.

He leaned close to his friend and murmured as much into his ear once the door was shut firmly behind them, and Gil laughed and turned to kiss him in the dark.

He felt his friend's willingness in the stretch of his back as he closed his arms round him, felt the first quickening of Gil's arousal against his thigh. Drawn more passionately than he had been in some time, Remus leaned down into the kiss and pressed himself close.

"Can we make it to the dormitory, or should we hide out in the broom cupboard," Gil cracked with a smirk against Remus' lips.

When they finished, Remus tugged Gil's dressing gown around himself to leg it into the chilly bath; as he made his way back to bed a few minutes later, a sudden sparking sensation shot up his nerves, startling him badly as some unknown party passed through the passive wards he had set at the boundaries of the dooryard. He moved quickly towards the door, reaching it just as the pounding began.

Wandless and barely dressed, he flung the door open, making the young man on the other side gasp and jump back.

"Are you Remus?" he asked then, stepping forward and casting _lumos_ above them, using his own slender wand.

The clear white light showed his face: high cheekbones and brow and sculpted nose, a messy mop of black hair, tossed by the wind against the darkening sky--and bright yellow eyes. "I'm Rolf, I'm a friend of Elinor's. Nellie?" he added at Remus' blank look. "From the apothecary?"

"Of course," Remus said. "Is something the matter?"

"Naw," the lad drawled, reaching into his cloak. "Only I wanted to bring you this." He drew out a tartan-patterned thermos then and held it out to Remus. "It's wolfsbane. Nellie made it."

He took it, stiff.

"You're to drink it the night of the full moon, before moonrise," he explained. "It'll help. With your--problem."

Remus nodded. "I understand. Thank you."

Rolf nodded back at him, smiling in what he must have thought was an encouraging way. "You'll be alright," he added in a low voice. "It's not so bad, once you get used to it."

Remus hadn't any idea what to say to that--it was usually his line. So he nodded at the poor boy and thanked him again and shut the door in his face.

Without quite knowing why, Remus squirrelled away the thermos in the back of the bookcase, behind a stack of old sporting magazines that wouldn't interest Gil, before he took himself back to bed.

"Who was it?" Gil asked him, leaning up from his pillow in the dark.

"Nothing," Remus told him, dropping the dressing gown onto the floor and slipping back between the linens with his friend.

"What, had the wrong house?" Gil asked, disbelieving. "Out here?"

Remus shook his head. "It's only--" He cleared his throat. "Well, I'll just say we've been noticed by the werewolves."

"Ah," Gil said, surprised. Remus could see his eyes go wide in the dim moonshadow.

"I'll go down to the woods this month," Remus told him, settling close against his friend and leaning down into his hair. "This may be over sooner than you think."

In the morning, Lestrade skritched insistently at the window until he was allowed to depart on an unknown errand, and Remus left Gil at home in his pyjamas and apparated directly to the village, touching down on the frost-slicked street before the apothecary. "Elinor?" He called as he entered.

The girl spun, startled, at his voice again.

"Oh! Good morning! Remus, isn't it?"

"We should talk. Privately."

"What's this about?"

"I believe you know."

She stared at him for a moment. "Alright." With a quick lash of her wand, she flipped the placard on the door to close the shop from where she stood. "Come into the back," she said, not meeting his eyes.

"A friend of yours paid me a visit last night," Remus said in a low voice when they were alone in the small, curtained-off kitchen behind the shop. "Rolf? He's a werewolf, isn't he?"

Grim-faced, Nellie nodded.

"I'd like to see him again," Remus said.

But she folded her arms over her front and gave him a stern look. "Mister Lockhart's book--it's about werewolves, isn't it?"

Surprised, Remus gave her a single, quick nod.

"And are you here about Tommen?"

Remus didn't answer, allowed only mildest concern to show on his face, and waited.

She sighed, defeated. "How did you find out?" 

"I don't understand," he said, careful and cool.

She looked away now, spoke impersonally to the wooden worktop. "Madam Goldstein said that old beasthunter she got to find him had to take him to Saint Mungo's, so we knew it would be in the Ministry's records. But we didn't expect writers to come looking for the story--and so soon."

Remus blinked as he realised she was referring to his own father. "I don't know anything about that," he lied, "but you must be the one who told Rolf your suspicions about me. And you must have given him the potion. Why, if you--disapprove of us?"

"Not denying it any longer?"

"There doesn't seem to be much point in it," Remus said, cool with played-up pragmatism.

"I felt sorry for you," she admitted. "We get werewolves coming into the village sometimes, looking for help. Sometimes they ask me for potion, though they can't pay. I try to help them sometimes, when I can afford it. On account of Rolf." After a moment, she added, "And Tommen too, now."

"That's very kind of you," Remus told her.

"But that doesn't mean we want you and your friend poking your noses in our business--nor spreading it around. Tommen can't help what happened to him any more than you can."

"Elinor, we came here because we wanted to get away from the city to finish our work, and a friend offered us the cottage. The book is fiction, or very nearly so--although I don't think, er, Mister Lockhart would appreciate me saying so."

She indicated his hand, no longer bandaged but still curled half-numb against his front and still marked by fresh red weals of healing wounds not yet become scars. "Then how did you get bit?" she said. "And it's Nellie, please."

Remus cleared his throat. " _That_ is another story entirely, Nellie."

"And why do you want to speak to Rolf?"

"As you can see," he told her, cool and patient, "I have a personal interest in the subject now. I want to know more about--" He hesitated. "--what to expect of my future."

"You'll swear to me it isn't for the book?"

"Of course not," Remus prevaricated in a soothing voice. "I have no wish to expose or to exploit anyone."

"I can arrange for him to come and see you again," she said, thoughtful.

He shook his head. "No, _not_ at our cottage. I must speak to the boy privately."

"He... stays at Mill Cottage," Elinor said through some hesitation. "With Madam Goldstein. She's his gran."

Remus nodded. "Thank you." He turned to go.

"Wait--"

He turned back to regard her half over his shoulder.

"Will you please tell Mister Lockhart I can't see him again?"

Remus cocked an eyebrow. "Very well," he told her, again quite surprised.

He found Mill Cottage at the end of a winding lane, downhill from the old chapel and tucked into a depression at the end of a small valley, where a diverted stream passed unseen beneath a thicket, not yet iced over. An old woman worked out front, bent slightly at the waist to banish the light dusting of snow from the walk with broad sweeps of her wand.

"Hullo," Remus called to her as he approached. "I'm looking for Rolf."

She straightened, cricking her back with her hands on her hips, and adjusted her wide-brimmed and pointed hat over silver hair still shot with dark brown. "Uh, okay--what do ya want Rolf for?" There was a weird, flat twang in her voice--for a moment he thought she must have been Irish, like Gil, but the impression didn't last.

"I'm a friend of Elinor's," Remus lied. "We have something in common, I'm afraid."

"Hunh," she said, looking him up and down. "Well, he's inside." She stopped short of inviting Remus in, or offering to call the boy out. "I'm sorry, who are you again? And how exactly do ya know Nellie?"

"From the apothecary," he said smoothly, with a disarming smile.

She stared at him with a puzzled frown. "I don't think--" 

But she was cut off by the slam of a door and a surly cry of, "Don't _worry_ , Gran, it's alright," as the lad rushed past her. "He's a friend. We'll just walk up to the pub."

The old woman frowned, but declined to argue as Rolf unlatched the gate and stepped through to join Remus on the road. 

"Alright?" Rolf greeted him. "Thought you might turn up."

Remus nodded his own placid greeting. "I had some questions for you," he said. After a number of steps, when they were out of the old woman's earshot, Remus cleared his throat and asked, casual, "Say, Rolf, what age are you?"

"Seventeen," he said, a bit defensive.

Remus nodded.

"Why?"

"I'm curious, how long have you been--?" He cut himself off and gestured vaguely with his injured hand.

"Oh, that," Rolf said. "I was born like this. My dad was a werewolf."

Remus stared, horrified. "Merlin--I'm sorry," he said.

Rolf shrugged. "It doesn't bother me much."

"But," Remus blurted without thinking, "the pain--" He stopped himself, chagrined.

The boy shrugged again. "'M used to it," he mumbled, in a tone that clearly said he wasn't used to it.

They walked in silence for some moments. Finally, Remus asked, "Does your father stay with you and your grandmother?"

The boy frowned and became very interested in his feet. "No," he said. "He's gone."

"I see," Remus said. It didn't seem an adequate response, so he added, "Mine was probably very much the same," with a wry grin.

Rolf nodded, tight-lipped.

"And do you know any other werewolves? Besides myself, I mean. Anyone in the village, perhaps?"

"Why you so interested?"

Remus opened his mouth and closed it again, frowning. "I've heard some troubling rumours since arriving here in Dovetown," he said. "I have a feeling that there might be something wrong here. I want to help, if I can." 

"Help who, though?"

"Well--whoever might need it," Remus said, honest. Rolf gave him a sceptical eye, so he added, "Over the years I've learnt that people like us must look out for one another, Rolf. Most of the time, no one else is going to."

The boy grunted an acknowledgement, but after a moment he asked, "Thought you were just bit?"

"No," Remus said, keeping his voice low. "That was a misapprehension on Elinor's part, I believe. I _was_ injured last month, but I was infected when I was a small child."

Rolf frowned at him, surprised. "You really do know what it's like, then?"

Remus cleared his throat and nodded, but Rolf said no more. By now they had come to the little stretch of town street and it was wiser not to continue the thread of conversation. As they approached the pub, Rolf stopped in his tracks, hands in pockets.

"Not coming in?" Remus asked, turning.

He shook his head. "Gran'll be expecting me back," he said.

Remus nodded. "Think about what I've said. If you think of anyone who might need help, you can come to me."

Rolf nodded back, frowning thoughtfully, and stayed put, so Remus turned and went into The Thirteenth Bell.

"Hullo, Remus," Madoc greeted him when he took a seat at the bar.

"Good afternoon, Madoc," he said. "How are you?"

"Jes fine, and yerself?"

He nodded, distracted. "Tell me, Madoc, do you have a floo connection I could use--a private one?" he added when the fellow indicated the hearth across the room. "I need to make a sensitive call."

"Ay, come on through," Madoc grunted, lifting a section of the bar for him.

He led Remus into a private sitting-room off the kitchen and left him alone, and Remus waited until the other man had returned to the front before he locked and warded the door and made the connection. Finally assured that the communication would be private, he leaned into the warmth of the green fire.

"Remus!" Aberforth greeted him after a short delay and a clatter of hooves on planking. "How goes it in Dovetown, lad? By the way, I spoke to Albus. He says he knows all about your friend--you're to keep up exactly what you're doing."

"Oh," Remus said, surprised.

"So," Aberforth prompted, "Anything to report?"

He blinked his brief confusion away before he nodded, all business again. "I have yet to make contact with the pack, but I've found another boy," he said, terse. "Rolf, I think his name is Goldstein." He cleared his throat. "But it wasn't a recent infection."

Aberforth nodded down at the image of Remus nestled in his hearth, seemingly unsurprised.

"He has access to the potion, so I don't believe he's responsible for the recent attack. But I have a feeling he might have contacts among the wild wolves, or know of someone else from the village who's been infected."

"Lean on him," Aberforth instructed. "He could be an asset."

Remus nodded--it was already his plan. "Do you have any information on the boy who was bit? I've been told he was taken to Saint Mungo's, so he'll be in the Registry now of course, and all that entails."

The older werewolf nodded again, again unsurprised. "I'll see what Albus knows."

Remus nodded. "I'll contact you again when I have more to report." He hesitated a moment, second-guessing himself, but in the end decided it could do no harm if he was wrong. "Oh--and Aberforth?" Remus said then, too-casual, as the older werewolf drew his wand and prepared to dispel the connection. "Will you look into something for me, up at the school?

"What's that?"

Remus leaned deeper into the flame and lowered his voice. "I'd like to see a few old quidditch rosters," he said.

Merlin, sometimes he felt like he was going in circles.

Lestrade had not returned by the time Remus apparated back to the cottage, and Gil had not dressed. He was sat with his feet up by the fire and a clutch of red-inked notes in his lap, rereading scenes that had been finished for ages, or so Remus had thought, and noting things he would prefer changed.

"I have a message for you," Remus told him as he hung his cloak on the back of the door. "From Elinor." At Gil's blank look, he said, "Nellie?"

"Oh--ah..."

"I assume it doesn't mean what it sounds like it means," he said, offhand and cool.

A pink flush coloured Gil's cheeks, and Remus cocked a brow again. "It isn't what you think--" he said in a rush.

Remus' heart was suddenly fluttering wildly, but he tried not to show it. "I haven't said what I think," he said with narrowed eyes.

"I wanted to see what she knew about werewolves!" Gil plead, seeming distressed. "For the book! I feel useless, stuck up here with nothing to do--I only kept it a secret so you wouldn't worry!"

Remus pursed his lips. "Well, she's said she wouldn't like to see you again, so I don't suppose it matters _what_ you were doing with her," he snapped. Even as he spoke, he knew it was it unfair--it made a world more sense to think his friend had been conducting his own research than to accuse him of stepping out, but Remus was angry at him for keeping it a secret, and for letting slip too much about the book to the wrong party. He might have learned a good deal more from Elinor if she'd thought him an innocent fellow-victim with no ulterior motives.

"Well that's fine with me," Gil said, defensive. "I was only meeting with her to help you, anyway."

Remus pursed his lips. "I'm sorry," he made himself say. "What did you find out?" He asked after a moment, after toeing off his shoes and moving to sit near the fire as well.

"Sorry?" Gil asked, clearly confused and still distressed.

"From Elinor? From Nellie," he corrected himself.

"Oh, that." Gil blinked, seemed to consider for a moment. "I don't think she knows much at all beyond potions," he said with a sniff. "She went on and on about how wolfsbane potion is brewed, but she didn't have much to say beyond that."

"She didn't say anything to you about a boy called Tommen?"

Gil shook his head. "Not that I remember," he said. There was a pause. He drew his brows up and leaned forward. "Can't we just forget about it? It was silly of me not to tell you."

Remus sighed. "Of course," he said. "I shouldn't have been cruel about it."

Sometime later, when they had both settled into warm seats by the fire and washed their quarrel away with a nice cup of tea, Lestrade returned home and glided from the window ledge onto Gil's shoulder, wooting grumpily and nipping at his ear as he wrested Remus' parcel from the creature's talons. Once the owl was relieved of his burden, he became affectionate, turning his head this way and that and alternately closing his large yellow eyes as he nuzzled at Gil.

"Yes, yes, you're very charming," he told the bird, handing Remus the cylindrical parcel.

It was an unlabelled bottle of wolfsbane, with no address or name upon the plain brown wrapping. On the inside of the paper was scrawled the ominous instruction, _Take care,_ in spidery black script, unsigned. The tarry purpleish contents seethed unpleasantly as he turned it in his hand. He tucked it into a pocket.

"Handy, that," Gil said.

Remus nodded absently and closed the window with a flick of his wand hand from where he was sat. "Do you want to go into the village for supper?"

As they walked together, skirting past the ominous old churchyard and rounding the corner to make their way to The Thirteenth Bell, Remus heard a small noise behind himself, a small hiss. He cocked his head to the side and stopped, and from behind the gatepost of the churchyard, cocking a leg over the ratty old black dog still sleeping there, stepped Rolf. 

"Remus?" he asked in a low voice as the two men turned to face him. "Can I speak to you?"

Gil lifted his brows, surprised and maybe suspicious, and Remus told him, "I'll meet you at the pub."

"But--"

"Gil, go on."

He put a petulant frown across his brow, but he turned and stepped quickly away, possibly in a small huff.

"What is it, Rolf?"

The boy seemed hesitant, but he spoke up. "I think I might know someone who... you might want to speak to."

"Oh?" Remus said, carefully neutral.

"Can you meet with him tomorrow night? Before the moonrise, I mean."

"Of course. Do you know the old road that goes up Keener's Ridge? On the other side, it passes into the forest and meets with a stream, near a large oak. I'll be there an hour before sunset."

The boy glanced over his shoulder, looking very much as if he would prefer not to be where he was at the moment, and then he looked back at Remus, nodding earnestly. 

Remus nodded curtly back at him and said a gruff goodbye, and turned to follow his friend across to the pub.

The next evening, just after an early meal, Remus swallowed down the potion Albus had sent though it made him queasy to drink it so early, bade goodnight to Gil with a soft kiss on the apple of his cheek so as not to spread the poison to his lips, and bundled himself into his cloak and scarf to make his way down to the snow-dappled forest.

As he left the dooryard, he double-checked to be certain the gate was latched and the wards were in place, and then he turned and walked swiftly up the ridge road to the north without looking back.

He came to the place without incident, and waited for some time, leaning back on the trunk of the large oak that overshadowed the bank of the little stream and making notes in his field journal by the light of a small blue flame as the evening darkened around him.

After a time, the sudden and deliberate-seeming snap of a twig announced the presence of another werewolf: Remus looked up from his writing to see a fellow standing straight and confident in the middle of the clearing before him, just at the place where the last remains of the old road ended.

"Are you Remus?" the wolf-man asked in a voice that seemed gravelly with disuse, or overuse. He was a good deal older than Remus, too-tall and too-bony and too-scarred, with a slight stoop to his neck and a red-brown mop of curly hair and beard shot through with grey--in short, he was a scruffy wreck. Living in a city he'd have been called a derelict, and chased out of parks and alleyways. Too far gone for human society, now.

Remus was startled by the similarities in their physicality. How small and insignificant were the differences that made him a respectable wizard, and this fellow a dangerous monster.

Finally, he cleared his throat. "I am," he said, closing his journal and tucking it into the breast of his robe. "Rolf sent you?"

The man nodded, narrow-eyed with suspicion. "He said you'd come to help us."

Remus glanced round. He could see no other figures in the dark wood surrounding them, but he was certain they weren't alone. Slowly, he rose to his feet. "I hope that I may be of help to anyone who is in need of it," he said carefully. "It is my understanding that a number of people from the village have been attacked--"

"Not attacked!" The fellow insisted in a rough bark. "Not by us!"

"Gone missing?" Remus suggested, calm.

The fellow allowed that, with a reluctant nod.

"And your pack has been unfairly blamed for it, haven't they?" Remus asked.

The other man stepped closer, nodding again, seeming earnest and almost-hopeful this time. "We didn't take those people," he said. "We don't _take_ anyone. If they had been bit, they'd be welcome to stay with us, if they wanted. But we're not fools. We know they'd be better off to leave--if they had someplace to go still."

Remus watched him for a short time to see the steadiness of his demeanour before he nodded his understanding. "What of the boy?"

"Rolf? He's happier in the village--"

Remus shook his head. "I mean the boy who was bit recently."

The other werewolf looked ashamed. "That was an accident. We took care of him. And when the ol' man came looking for him, we made sure he got safe back to his family. We couldn't do nothin' else."

Remus nodded again. "Do you know what's happened to the missing villagers?"

He nodded. "It's not us," he said. "I swear it's not a werewolf. But it is a beast. Some of us have seen it."

"Can you describe it to me?"

"If you come with us tonight, I'll show it you."

Remus nodded slowly and from a pocket of his overrobe he drew Rolf's tartan thermos. "I brought this in case you needed it, but I'm afraid I don't have enough for everyone." He held it out. "It's wolfsbane."

The fellow wrinkled his nose and lashed out with one hand across the space in front of his chest. "I won't take that poison," he grumbled.

"It will help you to control yourself," Remus said, gently.

The other werewolf gave a sour laugh. "That what they told you?"

Remus shrugged, bland. 

"Yeah, well, If you want it, that's your business. I don't stop anyone who wants it. But you ought to know it's killin' you."

"I find it an immense relief to be able to mitigate the danger I pose to others," Remus told him, admittedly a little aloof.

Another sour laugh as the fellow reached down to undo his rough trousers. "Yeah alright, posh boy," he drawled. "You comin' or no?"

Remus blinked his surprise at the still-unsupportable assertion that he was of a better class than anyone at all, shrugged again, and began to remove his own robes. Better to stay with the fellow so that he could play the dog if necessary.

Not as if it would be the first time.

They bundled their clothes together into the hollow of the old oak and stretched their long limbs as they waited for the moonrise. Remus was again struck by their similarity--the other werewolf was as tall as he, and as lean as he had been at times. Leaner, even. It must have been a hard living out here, away from the city with its crowds who sometimes left half-eaten food at tables or bought dangerous and thrilling favours from those they held to be below themselves.

Finally, the rays of the silver moonlight caught in the winter mist over the crest of the nearby ridge, and when the bone-crackling spasm hit them in the same moment, they fell together to the forest floor.

Long minutes of twisting agony passed as Remus's body broke itself apart. The other wolves, the strangers concealed in the wood around him and this gruff fellow who led them, all changed in a stupor, overtaken by the unawareness of their wolf-minds, but Remus, drugged cold sober, was forced to feel every snap and stretch and stab of it again. He gritted his teeth and held himself silent while they howled together.

Finally, panting with the exertion, he gathered his three good limbs under himself and raised his muzzle to the pack, to find them all waiting calmly, watching him, circling him as if to protect him, or to keep him contained.

The red fellow who led the pack shoved against Remus' shoulder to show his acceptance of the newcomer and then began to stalk intently away, confident that the others would follow--and so they did. Remus kept close to him, head low and hackles up with the uncertainty of the situation, and favouring his right front paw.

To what extent could these beasts be in control of themselves if they didn't use wolfsbane, he wondered as they walked. Greyback had always claimed to have some awareness of what happened while he was shifted, to retain some force of will when in his wolf-shape which allowed him to be better exploited for his venom, but Remus had never found an explanation for it, had never been satisfied that there was any truth to the claim.

It had always seemed to Remus that he himself was the only sane one, on those dark nights during the war.

They patrolled the deep wood for a time, finally emerging from the trees below the crest of another ridge. Remus and the red fellow scrabbled up the rocky scree, leaving the pack behind, and at the top of the hill, the other werewolf sat down on his haunches and turned his long muzzle towards him, seeming as lucid as any werewolf on a dose. Was it only because there were no humans nearby, just as Remus' old friends had always said?

Remus moved closer and sat down beside the other wolf. For a long time, they watched the sea of green hills spread below them, lit by the bright moon.

Finally, after two hours or more of still and silent vigil, he felt the red wolf tense beside him. He watched carefully, following the other wolf's gaze, but saw nothing. He turned to watch as the fellow rose slowly to his four feet, baring his teeth in a vicious snarl and pointing with his muzzle across the dales, at the crest of another ridge.

Remus looked again, still saw nothing.

After a time, whatever the other wolf saw seemed to depart, or to disappear. His tense muscles relaxed and he sat himself down on his haunches again, finally turning to meet Remus' eyes once more.

Remus slowly shook his head back and forth, confused.

They made their way back down the ridge. The other wolves had gone by now, dispersed to the forest or together back to their camp perhaps. Remus followed the red fellow back to the old oak, and the two laid down together and slept fitfully until moonset broke their bones again.

"What do you mean you didn't see it?" The other werewolf pressed some time later as they were dressing, sounding half-demented. "The thing's massive!"

Remus paused in the act of buttoning his shirt. "I didn't see anything," he said. "You seemed to, though. Do you remember?"

The red fellow grunted, dissatisfied, and shrugged. "It must have been there--I see it every time I'm up on the dales. So do some of the others. 'S why we stick to the wood."

"You're certain it wasn't another werewolf?"

"I'm certain, posh boy. It's _not_ one of us. Can't be. I know all the wolves round here, anyhow."

"You didn't know me until last night," Remus pointed out, cool.

"Oh, didn't I?" he said, smug.

Remus had no reply to that. He fastened his overrobe and slung his cloak over his shoulders. "I'll see what else I can find out from the villagers," he said. "Some of them have seen the beast as well. I'd like to speak with you again soon, and the others of your pack."

The other werewolf nodded. "Likely we'll see each other in about a month," he grunted as he turned away, also fully dressed now. "I'm called Lysander. Speak to Rolf if you need me afore then."

Remus nodded. "Lysander, wait--" The other werewolf turned back. "Do you know of a werewolf named Greyback?"

The fellow laughed, bitter. "Who doesn't?"

Remus nodded his sympathy. "Do you know if he's in the area?"

"He'd best not be," Lysander growled, with abject murder in his voice.

Remus made his way back up to the cottage only to find that Gil had gone out for the day, leaving a small note in purple ink which explained he had got bored of waiting and had taken himself away to London to pamper himself with a new haircut and a proper shave, and to see the latest trends in robes for the springtime--which he noted was approaching quickly in terms of fashion, though winter wasn't yet truly started. Remus sighed, a little disappointed, and went into the kitchen to fix himself some eggs.

Lestrade blinked at him from the window ledge. As he ate, the creature slowly cocked its head to an unnatural angle, staring balefully at him all the while.

"Can't think of any sometimes-invisible beasts, can you?" he asked around a corner of toast. 

The owl puffed its feathers and sleeked them again before it spread its wings, gathering air under itself with a few powerful strokes to glide over Remus' head and into the sitting room at the front of the cottage, where it alighted on the bookcase and cocked its head at him again.

"Fair enough." He turned his attention back to his food.

Lestrade screeched insistently at him though, and with one wicked talon reached down and hooked the spine of a large red book on the top shelf. This volume and several others fell to the floor with dull thuds, and Remus frowned at the bird.

"I'm not cleaning that up," he bluffed.

Lestrade screeched again and knocked another couple of books down.

"Do I have to ask Gilderoy to have a word with you when he returns home?"

Lestrade puffed his feathers again, turned his head round and put his wing over it, and tucked one foot up into his skirt of fluff, trilling softly but indignantly to himself about his misfortune.

Remus finished his eggs and left his plate for Gil to deal with if he cared to, stood and stretched his aching bones, and told the sleeping owl, "You've got the right idea," as he stepped into the front room to collect the books.

He didn't take himself to bed right away, though, for when he leaned down he saw the front cover of the large red volume with its brightly-illustrated griffon, and became quite distracted. He left the other books where they'd fallen and sat himself down in one of the armchairs by the fire with his feet up on Gil's favourite lilac pouf to read.

Gil returned in the late afternoon with an assortment of packages and early Christmas sweets, to find Remus sitting up and half-asleep with the old copy of _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_ spread open on his chest.

"Oh what's this, asleep in the sitting room and not even undressed?" he teased, waking Remus with all his bustle and charm as he set down his parcels. "Here, do you want a--one of these?" He held out a paper wrapper.

"Mhmm," Remus said as he stretched. It turned out to be a roasted chestnut, salted and still warm. He crunched it in his teeth with satisfaction.

"Have you had a bath yet, love? Shall I draw you one?"

Remus smiled at the reminder of their old ritual. "Please," he said.

Soon, he was settling his long form into water that was almost too hot and watching with an appreciative eye as Gil undressed before the mirror. "Budge up," he said as he turned, nudging Remus' shoulder until he bent his knees up and scooted forward.

Gil slid into the water behind him, and Remus leaned back into his chest and relaxed into his friend's arms.

For some time, they sat like that. Remus shut his eyes the better to feel the synchronicity of their breath and the heat of the water, and Gil held him and petted his arms and kissed his shoulder and the back of his neck.

Remus drew deep, slow breaths, feeling very safe and untroubled, as the heat soaked the ache from his bones.

"Touch me," he said eventually. He'd meant to utter a softly-seductive murmur, but it came out a whimpering plea instead.

He felt the curl of Gil's smile against his shoulder. "Ah sure, haven't done this in a while, have we? Don't want to fall out of practice." His fingers found Remus below the water. "D'yeh like that?" he purred when Remus gasped and pushed himself forward into his palm.

Unaccountably bashful, Remus squeezed his eyes shut and nodded. He leaned back, laying his head back onto his friend's shoulder, and sighed with deep contentment as Gil began to stroke him.

After a short time, he clasped Gil's wrist with his injured hand to hold him still, braced the balls of his feet against the corners of the bathtub to give himself a fulcrum, and arched his back to thrust up into the other man's grip, pumping sensuously and slowly. He sighed again, content and shuddering, and with his free hand gripped his friend's arm when it came across his chest to hold him close. 

He kept going for long minutes, savouring the other man's grip, the roll and the slide of his own foreskin, until Gil murmured softly into his ear, "Water's getting cold," though it wasn't. "Hurry up, I want a turn."

Remus laughed and turned his head to set a smiling kiss on Gil's jaw before he slid his hand down to tighten his friend's grip with his own half-tingling fingers, still sharp and rough with healing along the edges of where he could feel things. He ignored the sensation and began to pump harder, faster.

Gil's grip across his chest tightened as the pace of his panting breaths began to increase, pinning Remus back against him with possessive passion. He could feel his friend's erection against the small of his back, thick and electric-feeling where it pressed against him--buzzing with the match of their magic, resonating more and more deeply as they became more attuned. If he concentrated, he could feel it in their joined hands--even despite his injury--and arcing weakly against his own prick. Remus gasped in the hot, clean-smelling steam of the bath, and let it go in a rush as orgasm finally wracked him again and again, left him shuddering and drained and decorated all up his belly where his skin rose above the water.

He must have fallen into exhausted sleep for a few too-short minutes then, for he was suddenly aware of Gil nudging him awake, sweet words he didn't know whispered close against his ear, a playful roll of his hips that made the water slosh around them both. Weary, Remus hauled himself out of the bath, dried himself, moved towards the small, warm bedroom behind the chimney on wooden feet.

Soon he found himself in bed, muzzy with approaching sleep as Gil lay next to him, stroking himself. Remus used his uninjured wand hand to take over the motion, soon felt the familiar curl of Gil's fingers closing over his.

He must have got him there, of course, but next Remus knew his eyes were fluttering open on the cold, bright sunlight of the near-winter morning, on Gil's place in bed, empty and open to the now-chilly air. 

His friend must have gone to make breakfast.

He could smell coffee, and the cakey, yeastless whiff of soda bread, and Gil's frequent guilty pleasure of sizzling bacon, all filling the small home with warmth and life. Remus stretched his arms over his head and yawned before he slid pyjamas up his lean legs and tugged on the fluffy red dressing gown Gil had bought in Paris.

When he emerged from the bath a short time later, he found Gil in the kitchen again, plating up food on a tray for them both. Remus smiled and thanked the other man with a kiss, and Gil carried the tray in to set it upon the wide hearthstone so that they could eat in the comfortable armchairs by the fire.

When the meal was finished and their cups were empty, Remus dressed in old trousers and a comfortable cardigan and moved to the writing desk by the window to record his thoughts about the full moon night while they were fresh in his mind, and Gil cleared away the plates and brewed a second pot and went to tend to his hair.

He worked until midmorning, and then he read back through the scene twice to be sure he hadn't left anything out. Something about the conversation with Lysander as he remembered it struck him as curious, but he couldn't put his finger on it.

He turned back through his small field journal for some time, trying to draw new connections between disjointed facts, or to jog whatever part of his mind was murmuring uneasily at him. After a time, he began to sift through their manuscript, and the piles of drafts that were waiting to be added to it.

He was drawn from his reverie by a sharp poke in the shoulder from Gil. "Remus? D'yeh hear me?" his friend was saying with a smile.

"Hmm?"

"I'm goin' out of my skull, let's go fer a walk er somethin'."

Remus blinked up at his friend. "Er, yes, alright," he said. He blinked down at the piles of parchment before him, though. "Say, do know you what's happened to the final Paris scene? I wanted to read over it again."

"Eh? Oh, I don't know, it must be there somewhere. You ought keep your work in better order, you know, I've had a terrible time keeping it all straight."

"Hm," Remus said.

"Ah well--the things we do for love!" He crossed to the door and selected one of his favourite cloaks, holding it out for Remus to assist him. "You coming?"

"Yes, of course."

It wasn't entirely necessary this time, but Remus allowed himself to take a few days lazing at home with Gil to recuperate from the full moon again. His hand by now was fully healed and almost fully functioning, and the electric jabs of his recovering nerves felt now like the pins and needles of sleep-deadened flesh awakening whenever he flexed his fingers or gripped something solid. The only thing for it now was to keep shocking it until it stopped. His exertion in the cold air of the late November night had drained him and for some days he felt a bit feverish in the evenings, as he often did after the full moon in the chill winter of Northern climes. He worked in his nightclothes at their shared writing desk, accompanied Gil on his short constitutionals, rested often by the fire, bundled up in an old quilt and with one of his father's old field guides or monster manuals open on his lap, eating voraciously and frequently as he pored through taxonomies and anatomy charts in search of beasts that were like werewolves, but not.

On the fourth day after the full moon, he dressed and took himself into Dovetown to see what he could learn of the mysterious beast from those villagers who had seen it. 

He began at the apothecary, but had no luck with Elinor. She admitted to him that it was common knowledge that a couple of old farmers had claimed to see werewolves near the village the previous year, but she was evasive when he pressed her for more information, pretending not to remember the names and locations of men she must have known all her life.

He thanked her politely and left, privately cursing Gil's well-meaning interference again.

As he walked across to the pub, he briefly entertained the notion of asking Gil to remove the girl's memories of whatever it was about their conversations that had so troubled her, so that he could make some progress with her himself--but something about the proposition felt entirely different to their earlier misadventures, to throwing coppers and and conmen off their trail. In those cases, they had defended themselves with gentle trickery from men intent on causing them harm. In this case, they would be manipulating the poor girl into revealing things that she obviously preferred to keep hidden.

He wouldn't have stood for such a thing if it were done to himself, he decided in the end.

He determined to leave Elinor be, and not to press her further in his investigation unless it was absolutely necessary.

"Hullo, Remus," Madoc said again when he pushed open the door of The Thirteenth Bell.

"Madoc," he grunted, gruff with the cant of his own thoughts. He seated himself facing the barman's station and asked for an ale and a plate of chips, and when he was served a few minutes later he thanked the fellow and made a leading comment about how much worse the grim, grey weather seemed up on the dales than here in the sheltered valley where the village was situated.

Madoc hummed his agreement.

"Sometimes," Remus continued, "the wind moving over the ridge sounds almost like a sort of beast, howling away all night. One could almost be forgiven for believing the rumours about werewolves," he added with a smile.

Madoc laughed. "Oh, yeh've heard about that, eh?"

Remus shrugged. "Rather difficult to avoid, isn't it? I was told that some people have even seen the beasts themselves."

The barman laughed again. "Oh we've all seen 'em round here--begging, going in the bins. Won't work like decent folk. They're a nuisance."

"Mm-hmm," Remus said, cool. "I mean out on the dales, at night. In their wolf forms."

Madoc grunted his acknowledgement. "Too bad old Colin Weatherwax don't come around no more," Madoc told him. "Like to never shut up about the one he used to have lurking out near his farm."

"Oh? You know, I wouldn't mind hearing what he has to say about it." Remus asked. "Do you know where I could find him?"

"Well, I do an' I don't," Madoc said with a shrug.

"What do you mean?"

"He's bound to be in the churchyard, en't he, but he's hardly in a talking mood. Died this summer."

"Ah," Remus said. "I see." He lifted his ale in salute to the unknown fellow and turned his attention to his chips as Madoc turned away to serve another regular patron.

He ate in silence for a time, considering his next move, and when Madoc swung back round to ask him if he wanted another pint he declined.

"Tell me, what sort of things did Colin say about the creature?" he asked, though.

Madoc shrugged again. "Didn't pay it much mind. Usual sort of things folk say about a werewolf, I reckon. Big. Hairy. Hell of a smile."

Remus huffed a soft laugh--that was a new one to him. "Would you mind if I were to make a private call again before I go?" 

The barman lifted the section of wood to allow Remus in, and shortly he was pushing his face through the flames to the Hog's Head.

He gave his report of the encounter with Lysander to Aberforth, quietly and succinctly. The older werewolf hadn't much to say on the matter, digesting the information with taciturn nods and thoughtful grunts, and encouraging Remus to keep on the trail.

"Oh, and I've got those records you wanted," Aberforth told him before they broke the connection. "From the school. Want me to owl 'em?"

"No, thank you," Remus told him, uneasy. "I... wouldn't want them falling into the wrong hands. I'll find an excuse to come and see you soon."

Aberforth nodded his understanding. "Take care of yourself, lad," the old man told him.

"Pardon me," Remus murmured as he stepped over the old black dog who still slept in the threshold of the churchyard. The animal, concerned only with whatever duties constrained it on this earth, paid him no attention whatsoever.

Remus moved slowly through the graves, reading the names that could still be read. He saw many surnames he recognised: Bullstrodes and Clearwaters, Scamanders here and there, and even one old, half-crumbled stone marked Lupin--though he didn't know to whom it might have belonged. To his knowledge, none of the Lupins to whom he was connected had come from this village, nor from any wizarding village. His mother had been a muggle woman without even a touch of power--unless one counted the half-mad and haunting notions some muggles called Sight--but Remus had seen the name mentioned in old wizarding records more than once in the years since her disappearance.

One more little thing that would never add up.

It was easy enough to find the Weatherwax clan where they lay, and Colin's stone was among the newest in the churchyard. The date checked against what he had been told.

A literal dead end.

He had stood before the grave for some time, smoking one of Gil's cigarettes and rolling the little red-lit sphere the Dumbledores had sent in his palm as he wondered what to do, when he heard a soft _whuff_ from beside him.

He glanced down to find the old dog standing beside him, looking up at him with rheumy eyes. "Hullo," he told it. Its tail began slowly to sweep back and forth in approval of Remus' polite acknowledgement.

The dog blinked and turned its attention to the stone marker for a moment, as if reading the graven words. It looked back up at Remus then, heaved a massive and long-suffering sigh, and turned to pad away, off to its eternal guard station between the gateposts again.

One bright Sunday morning early in December, Gil poked his nose up out of his book and said with his own accent, "God, d'yeh know what I'd kill fer?"

"What's that," Remus said from the writing desk, where he'd been going through drafts in search of his account of their final showdown with the black and silver fellow, which had still not turned up though he was sure he'd searched thoroughly.

"A butterbeer--a proper hot one, like from The Three Broomsticks, when we were boys."

Remus' brows leapt with surprise, and he took his chance. "Well--do you want to go?"

"To Hogsmeade? What, today? Sure!" Gil said, bright, setting his book aside and unhooking his specs from his ears. "I'll get dressed!"

"I need a shave," Remus said with a soft smile, turning in his seat to watch as his friend vanished into the bedroom behind the chimney in a flutter of dressing gown.

"Oh don't--the beard's lovely in winter," Gil called over his shoulder.

Remus smiled, flattered, and rose to don his green cloak and the old faded charcoal and gold scarf he'd found hung behind the door when they'd arrived. A short time later, the two men drew their wands together, and prepared to disapparate.

Of course it would be a Hogsmeade weekend. 

They apparated onto the street in front of Honeydukes' with synchronised _pops_ , each under his own power, and were set adrift in a tide of black robes, barred scarves, and pointed caps.

Laughing, Gil waded through the crowd towards him. "Not long before I'm _recognised_ , and they start queuing for autographs," he called, a bit too-loud, though none of the children heeded him as he moved against the current of bodies making their way into the sweet shop.

Remus stifled a laugh behind his hand. "Not your audience, I imagine," he said, cool, and nodded towards the pub. "Come along."

The tables were all taken by black-robed students in bustling groups, so the two men found seats at the bar with the grown inhabitants of Hogsmeade, who by their strangeness drove off most of the children. Rosmerta recognised Remus with good cheer and a red smile, and performed a slightly less convincing reprise of the act when gently reminded that Gil had been a Hogwarts lad as well. She gave them butterbeers on the house as a homecoming gift, and asked after their families and wives and careers with a bright interest that seemed genuine--though it was clear enough to Remus that the barmaid was no more aware of his friend's fame than the students had been.

Strange, that he seemed better known abroad than here, where he had lived for years.

After Gil paid for the second round, Remus stood and leaned down to murmur near his ear, "I have to go and speak with Aberforth. Wait for me here."

His friend gave him a disappointed moue but nodded, and in a moment had busied himself regaling Rosmerta with some tale of derring-do from one of his books.

Remus smiled a soft and indulgent smile at his friend's easy charm, and turned to take himself out the back entrance of the busy public house.

He crossed behind the building and circled round to make his way to the Hog's Head Inn, pushing open the door upon the dimly-lit and uncrowded place to find only a few gruff old fellows staring studiously into their ales while a pair of seventh-year Slytherin girls, barely old enough to patronise the adult establishment, snogged enthusiastically--and, to Remus' thinking, somehow performatively--in a corner snug.

Remus ignored the spectacle and stepped swiftly towards the bar; Aberforth noticed him immediately and ushered him into a back room without a word exchanged.

"Remus! What a surprise! Can I offer you a tea?" Beatrice asked him, rising noisily to her cloven hooves and wiping her hands on her apron.

He accepted the small woman's bony and solid embrace and told her, "Please," with a smile.

Remus sat with Aberforth and his wife for some time, filling the older werewolf in more precisely on the details of the Dovetown situation, of Lysander's pack and their claim that the beast which terrorised the village was not among their number, and of Rolf's living arrangement in the village.

"Oh, the poor boy," Beatrice commented softly on learning that Rolf had been born with the ailment.

Aberforth patted her hand where it lay on the table. "'S why we never had any," he said in an undertone to Remus. "Couldn't stand the thought of passing it on--either of us."

Beatrice nodded down into her tea, and Remus cleared his throat, uncomfortable. "You said you had information from Albus?" he prompted after a moment.

Aberforth nodded and rose to his feet to cross to a bureau under the window and shuffle amongst the papers there. After a moment he returned and handed Remus the rosters for the Ravenclaw House quidditch team, from the autumn of 1976 to the spring of 1983 inclusive.

He scanned the documents quickly, searching for his friend's name page by page.

The year that would have been Gil's first didn't include him of course, as first years were never considered for the team, nor was he listed during his second or third years, when rare but outstanding talent sometimes won a student an early spot, particularly as a light and agile seeker.

Finally, during what would have been his fourth year, Gil's name was listed among the students who had tried for the team but failed to distinguish themselves. The fifth year was the same.

In what would have been Gil's sixth year, he was indeed listed as a seeker--but the name was struck out and another had been carefully penned beside it.

The last year, he wasn't mentioned at all.

Remus wasn't sure whether he felt relieved to find Gil had technically told the truth, ashamed to have doubted him in the first place, or suspicious of the circumstances that had led to his friend's name being struck from the roster and not included the next year.

He must have been removed from the team during that year for some reason, or he might have removed himself from it, perhaps in order to focus fully on his schoolwork as many Ravenclaws were wont to do. But it seemed he _had_ played, however briefly, for his house--just as he had said.

Somewhat more subdued now, Remus thanked Aberforth and Beatrice, left the papers on their kitchen table, and went out again into the snowy Hogsmeade street.

He walked back round to the other pub, burning a cigarette on the way and watching the students careening and carolling up and down the street. He smiled fondly at his own memories of days like this, when the bright sunlight and the cheer of dear friends could make a warm and welcoming sight of a cold village street. There was a smell of woodsmoke in the air, and baking, and the acrid sting of peppermint from the tray of fresh toads out front at Honeydukes'. As he passed, he leaned down and selected a pair, paying the cat who was minding the display with a silver sickle, and tucked them, wriggling, into a pocket.

Deliberately, he allowed himself to think only of superficial memories, from his early days at school: sitting with knees folded on the pavement playing gobstones and sharing sweets, tucking dungbombs under the skirts of the Slytherins' robes and running with the boys up the slushy street before they went off, laughing together about it over butterbeers.

Deliberately, he turned his mind's eye from the sly and smirking lad who was always beside him in those memories.

For what might have been the hundredth time, he indulged the fantasy of re-imagining some of those memories with his new friend, of recasting the role of schoolboy love. If they'd been the same age, things might have turned out altogether differently. If perhaps Remus had been sorted differently, or if Gil had, they could even have roomed together.

Of course, if Remus really wanted to engage with _what-ifs_ about his childhood, he wouldn't start there. But it was lovely to imagine those sweet looks and whispered words and stolen touches, here in this place where he had always been happy, with a friend who wouldn't betray him.

"Ah, finally!" Gil said with a bright smile when Remus stepped back up to the bar beside him at the Three Broomsticks. He indicated the mug Remus had abandoned, still full. "Where have you been, it's gone cold! I've been waiting for hours!"

Remus smiled tolerantly at his friend's exaggeration and warmed the drink with a gentle charm. "I had to see a man about a broomstick," he joked.

As December wore on, the chill growing sharper and the wind howling more insistently over the now thoroughly snow-blanketed dales, Remus poked about unsuccessfully in Dovetown, looking for leads on other townspeople who could shed light on this creature that supposedly wasn't a werewolf.

Everyone had a story of some old uncle or half-mad neighbour or cousin's mate's brother's wife's nephew who'd been haunted for a time by what they had assumed were werewolves, but no one could produce an actual witness.

He kept coming back to the same problem: the disappearances which had been noticed by the local folk in the years and months leading up to Remus' arrival here. The people who had seen the beasts no longer came into the village and no one knew why, or they had been so frightened by the creature that they had fled Yorkshire entirely, never to return--or, in a few cases, they had been already elderly and had died since their years-ago sightings.

The only lead he had left at all was the boy Tommen, who had been bitten two months ago now, and thanks to Remus' own father's flighty nature and disdain for proper reporting the only way he had to trace the boy was Elinor's apparent connection to him.

And anyhow, if the boy had been bitten by an actual werewolf in a tragic fluke, and if this creature really wasn't one, then how much could it really help to trouble the child with an interview? At best it would confirm that the boy wasn't involved in the situation at all, making another dead end for Remus, and at worst it would cast doubt on Lysander's assertion that the beast who regularly terrorised the village wasn't one of his pack.

If Lysander was wrong, Remus needed to know. It was his responsibility to protect both the pack and the village in this situation, and if one among the werewolves really was intentionally stalking the townspeople, then it was he who would have to put a stop to it in order to preserve the peace and protect the others of his kind.

Furthermore, the full moon was approaching quite soon, and with it the beast's ability to strike.

He would have to set aside his reservations about pressing Elinor any further, there was nothing else for it.

Remus put out his cigarette and stepped into the apothecary. "Nellie?" he called.

The girl startled again and whirled at his voice, her wild mass of black waves falling loose around her shoulders. "Oh hullo!" she said, her voice bright, but her face drawn with the taut and familiar expression of a person trying not to show their shock at the scars across his face. "Er, you startled me."

"I'm sorry about that," Remus said.

She was watching him with narrowed eyes. "Sorry--you called me Nellie."

"Yes."

"Have we met before?"

His brows leapt and he blinked his surprise at her. "Well, I am new to the village," he said, keeping his voice level. 

"Oh... Er..."

"I came in once before," he tried, careful, "for arnica. It was a couple of months ago, now. I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't remember--you seemed a bit preoccupied."

"Oh! Oh, I see. I'm sorry."

"My name is Remus," he said, startling himself with a rumbly break in his voice. He cleared his throat and smiled. "Shall we begin again?"

She laughed brightly. "Of course, Remus--how can I help?"

Not one to look a unicorn in the mouth, Remus leaned a little closer, softened his smile, and began again to lay the groundwork for her to realise that his now well-healed dog bite wasn't a dog bite at all.

He didn't push his luck that day with mention of the book, or with questions about Tommen--he only showed his hand, playing the game as slowly as he could afford given the cycle of the moon.

A few days before Christmas, Remus, once again made irritable by the approaching full moon and his body's response to it, and by his continued failure to turn up anything useful in this case, snapped at Gil over breakfast for no real reason and then took himself into the village to ascertain whether the proprietress of the local market really failed to stock marmalade or whether his friend had forgot his request. A short time later, with a jar of the stuff in his pocket and a scowl across his brow, he stepped across the street and sat himself down on one of the new benches in front of the common to smoke a cigarette and feel sorry for himself.

He felt... disconnected. He felt inadequate. He felt as if every time they quarrelled it was his fault. More than that: he felt that it was a function of his identity, of the part of his identity he would never have chosen. It was unfair to ask a lover to put up with a werewolf, for even when everything was going right he would always be prone to nonsense like this, as Gil called it.

He didn't want to dwell on it.

He put his cigarette out and, impulsive, took himself into the former florist's shop with its bright displays of silk and lace.

When he was finished there, he stepped out onto the snowy street again. As he was preparing to disapparate back to the cottage, he heard a shout from down the way.

"Oi, Remus!"

He turned to see Rolf approaching at a half-jog, one hand upraised and smiling. "Hello, Rolf," he said.

"Here," he lad said, "I was planning to bring you this tonight but." He held out the tartan thermos Remus had asked Lestrade to carry back to Mill Cottage after last month's full moon.

"Thank you, Rolf, but you needn't have--"

"Please, take it," Rolf pressed in a soft murmur. "I know it seems easy enough to control yourself when there aren't any humans around, but that's how we end up with--" He pressed his lips together in a line. "--with things like what happened. To Nellie's son. You heard about that, didn't you?"

Remus took the thermos and slipped it into his robe, glancing slyly up and down the street as he did so to be sure no one would see. "Of course I'll take the potion," Remus assured him. "I only meant you needn't have brought it to me. I can get it myself."

Rolf shrugged. "My grandad left me a boatload of gold," he said. "It's nothing to me."

"You're the one who pays for the potions Elinor gives away," Remus realised.

Rolf nodded. "I think anyone who wants it should be able to have it. Don't have much else to spend on, stuck up here all the time."

"That's very kind of you." Little wonder then, that the village had attracted a large pack to the nearby woods.

The boy shrugged again. "Some don't want it," he said, seeming troubled.

Remus nodded. "I suppose that's their choice," he allowed. "As long as they take the proper precautions to keep themselves and others safe. But I much prefer not to take the risk."

"Some say... there's risks in taking it too," the boy admitted, seeming reluctant to voice the thought.

Remus nodded again. "Yes, that can be true for some people." He glanced away to stop the lad reading him. "One might think of it as a trade, as giving up one sort of control for another."

Rolf nodded, seeming to understand the wisdom in the statement.

Remus cleared his throat. "Say, Rolf," he said, deceptively offhand. "Are you--close with Nellie?"

Rolf shrugged, surly, with his mouth screwed up in a scowl. Not as close as he would like to be, was the impression he gave Remus.

"Do you know, has anyone spoken to the boy about what happened?"

Rolf shrugged again.

"It may not be quite the same for you," Remus began, "because you were never attacked. But I know from experience that it can be very difficult to--" He hesitated. "--to resolve one's feelings, after such an event. It may help him to speak with someone else who has been through it."

"Maybe _you_ could talk to him," the boy suggested, playing right into Remus' hand as if he hadn't been led there at all.

"Do you think Nellie would like me to?" he hinted.

"I can speak with her." Rolf nodded then, decisive. "Yeah, it would be good for him, wouldn't it?"

Remus drew a breath to steady himself and nodded back. "It might be," he said.

Remus returned home with his marmalade and his potion and a heavy heart to find that Gil had, once again, fucked off to London without him, leaving only another trite-sounding note. He remembered his irrational hurt about the forgotten marmalade as soon as he saw the little parchment waiting for him on the otherwise tidy writing desk by the window, next to another parcel from Albus, which Gil must have wrested from Lestrade's control before departing.

He sat himself at the desk and opened the parcel, and then he lined up in a little row the potion bottle within, the tartan patterned thermos with its duplicate dose, and the jar of jam.

He stared for some minutes at the objects, planning his next move, before he opened the drawer of the desk and drew out the bundles of manuscript and draft which Gil kept there.

He searched again for the scene which told the revised version of their last night in Paris, the night he and Gil had lured and trapped the black and silver werewolf and wiped his memories of them. Within the dark mirror of the book, it had been the protagonist's pretty wolf-girl paramour who had baited the fellow on the street, their flash and dashing nameless hero who had whipped his wand at the villain, and the plot they had foiled by removing his knowledge of it was tied in with the invented pan-European wolf-pack crime syndicate which Gil occasionally hinted at despite Remus finding the whole thing distasteful, rather than a simple scheme to lay hands on a fat purse of gold.

Despite his objections to the more tawdry elements of the revision, Remus was proud of his work on the scene. It was one of the more thrilling moments of the story so far, and it annoyed him that it had been mislaid.

He flipped through parchments for some time, finally deciding that the missing scene could not be among the papers kept in the desk.

Remus fixed himself lunch and let Lestrade back in from his morning hunt for field mice before he returned to the desk, reluctant to sit down and reconstruct the scene from memory but determined that it was important.

He took out quill and parchment, opened the peacock-blue ink which Gil said ought to be used for first drafts, and stared down at the creamy surface for a moment before one last thought occurred. He set the quill down again and stood to step into the small bedroom behind the chimney, and bent to retrieve his friend's small hand valise from under the bed, where it was stowed with the other luggage they had brought along from Alphard's. He flipped it open and, sure enough, found a cache of parchment within that somehow hadn't been unpacked into the desk with the rest.

He left the valise open on the bed and took the bundle of papers in to the desk again, flipping through them as he went.

He recognised some of the neatly-penned words from his own blue-inked drafts, some were unfamiliar revisions in Gil's curlier script. He sat himself down at the desk again and began to read.

He lost track of time entirely as he went back over the scenes he knew, and the new versions he hadn't seen of scenes he had thought finished--Gil must have written out alternate versions of his own of some of these events, and might have decided against using them. That must have explained why they were tucked away out of sight, separate from their active work.

Nothing suspicious about that, he told himself.

It was mid-afternoon when he flipped to the next sheaf of parchment and read the words that put his heart in his throat:

_It was during the summer of our year in Paris together that I witnessed for the first time a werewolf transforming. Of course Delphine would never have allowed me to see her in such a state, but in my travels I was fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of a gentleman who was willing to oblige me one night while she was out on her own dark business, a handsome fellow whose black hair, shot through with silver, resembled the very sky which cursed him._

Remus blinked down at the parchment, shocked.

_Like Delphine, this gentleman (if I may take the liberty of describing him so) was one of the unfortunate denizens of the street, and like Dephine, he made a commodity of his body when it was necessary. It goes without saying that no impropriety took place. I merely offered the fellow a princely sum for the opportunity to witness, constrained of course by the Wolfsbane Potion for which I had also paid handsomely, the effect of the full moon's light on the creatures which I had for so long studied and tracked._

_And so it was, dear Reader, that I, in my humble flat in Paris, stood with baited breath before a werewolf as he undressed himself and showed me all that he was._

Remus closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

When he opened them again, his gaze fell on the three vessels, lined up neatly, at the top of the desk.

He reached out with trembling fingers and snatched up the tartan thermos before he stood with a force that caused his chair to skitter backwards behind him. He grabbed his cloak from the back of the door and spun in place, leaving the parchments and the valise and the marmalade all where they lay for Gil to find when he returned.

Nothing was said of it when Remus came home that evening.

Gil had come back from London with a small stack of the sort of flat boxes that would hold new robes from a fine tailor's, and had left them haphazardly heaped on the bed. The valise was back in its place, all the bits of manuscript were squirrelled away inside the desk again, and the marmalade had found its way to the scarred yellow table in the kitchen.

Gil greeted him happily, they ate a simple supper and made inroads on a bottle of red wine, and Remus watched him all the while for any hint of shame or awkwardness over the scene he had discovered--but it seemed his friend was content to ignore the issue, or didn't understand why it might annoy the werewolf.

By the end of the night, Remus told himself stubbornly that the account had to be a fiction, that Gil must have invented the tale of hiring a renter to watch him change, to add intrigue and perhaps a touch of homoerotic tension to the book which was otherwise made quite traditionally romantic by recasting Remus in equal parts as the protagonist and his girl. He told himself that if his friend _had_ sought out such an encounter then it would surely have been as innocent as the manuscript claimed, or he would have felt guilty when Remus had made his discovery of the scene obvious, would have gone defensive and picked a fight again.

As they took themselves to bed, he told himself it was the pull of the moon making him insecure and irritable.

Again.

He laid down, stiff and tense, and pretended to be already asleep when Gil nuzzled at his neck and laid an arm over him. Eventually, his friend gave up and laid down beside him with a disappointed sigh. 

It was some time before he was able to relax his tight-coiled muscles and allow sleep to take him.

And that night--for the first time in years--he had Sirius in his dreams.

For some reason he couldn't fathom, his old lover was sprawled on his back in this very bed, where they had never known one another in life. Sirius was grinning, arching sensuously to show off his lean muscles and his wild sable-black hair where it tumbled across the pillow, making a filthy display of his pretty, plum-dark prick and the runes on his taut belly. 

Remus moved forward without force of will, as one must in dreams, and time slipped past in a breathtaking jump, as it can in dreams, and in a moment, in a gasping breath, the act was fully underway. He found himself buried to his bony hilt, with his arm curled under Sirius' neck and their mouths joined in a desperate, hungry kiss as they moved together. Sirius surged under him, fucking right back with energy and enthusiasm, with a force that equalled his own and a sparking resonance from his hot red healing magic that felt overwhelming in its strength after so long.

Remus had always imagined that locking hips with Sirius this way must have felt very much like being one of a pair of snakes coiling up to mate: wiry muscles wrapping snug round all parts of him at once, his friend writhing up against him and using the leverage of his lean body to force powerful twists and rolls into their rhythm. 

For what seemed a very long time, he melted into the warm and wild embrace, into the velvety drag of his favourite lover's most intimate flesh, the sweet almond scent of the conjured oil he always used and the smoky tang that always clung to his lips from his expensive cigarettes, like the feel and the smell of home to him. He felt Sirius' arms tightening round him like the vines that wracked the old cottage, felt his own right hand, seemingly uninjured now, curl gently round the root of him to give him just the sort of stroke he liked best--

As if nothing was wrong.

The thought broke the spell. Something _was_ wrong, of course. This was impossible and unconscionable now--all that Remus had put himself through in those days during the war, before his suspicions about Sirius had been confirmed, all of that was long over now--and it meant that something here was illusion or memory, or--

Suddenly, he could control his body, or the projection of his body. He broke the kiss and reared up, pulling away as if Sirius' skin would burn him.

Sirius barked a harsh laugh at him. "Moony," he said with a teasing note, "you dear, sweet _fool_. It's _me_."

"What?" Remus breathed, cupping himself defensively with one hand.

Sirius' grin turned crueller now. "Don't you understand? _I'm_ what you've been looking for!"

The dream became a nightmare then, if it wasn't before, for Sirius transformed beneath him, snarling and snapping his sharp white slaver-wet fangs like a feral creature, like a mindless wolf. Remus lurched back from the huge black beast with a startled yelp, toppling backwards off the bed--

\--and in the fall, he woke, a soft echo of his cry dying breathless on his lips as he jerked half-upright in bed next to Gil.

He glanced down at his friend to see if his sudden movement had woken him, but the other man still slept soundly beside him, snoring lightly.

Remus slid his long legs out from the bed, drew a cigarette from the packet Gil had left on the side table, and padded softly out to the sitting room in his skin, tired and chilled up his calfbones by the cold stone floor.

With shaking hands, he opened the wooden shutter of the small window set into the thick stone wall above the writing desk. He lit his cigarette then and took long, deep drags to steady himself, leaning over the desk and bracing an arm on the window ledge.

He hadn't dreamt of having Sirius like that in years. He didn't want to think of it, didn't want to remember it--the dream or the reality. And he didn't want to think of why.

If he were honest, he would have to admit that Sirius had always given him a better sort of satisfaction than it seemed Gil could.

Remus hadn't used to put much stock in the idea that one person could be naturally more gifted at lovemaking than another. Of course not even someone like Sirius was born with any knowledge or talent in that sphere--he had seen that firsthand. And of course anyone could learn to ring the right bells if they wanted to, anatomically speaking, given careful study or attentive practice.

But over the years since the war, as he had accumulated his own awkward and often unsatisfying experiences with other lovers, it had become impossible to deny that his oldest, dearest friend, his first friend--his worst enemy, he had to remind himself--had been quite generously endowed with the gifts necessary to please those he took to bed.

Oh, not to speak of his cock. It was as lovely as the rest of him, sure, slender and pretty and purple, but his real gifts were all behind his silver eyes: his cleverness, his passion, his desire to please. He had always been so enthusiastic, so responsive--downright pneumatic whenever Remus allowed himself to take the liberty.

Remus sighed. It wasn't that he craved specific acts Gil didn't prefer, it wasn't the perpetual imbalance when they occasionally did go so far that left him unsatisfied. He'd tried to tell himself he was content with what was on offer, for he would have been if all the rest felt right--if it were Sirius.

It wasn't the sex--it was Gil's way of loving. His lassitude, his selfishness, his secretive ways. Sirius, for all that he had turned against his allies in the end, had been--no, had seemed to be, Remus reminded himself--compassionate as well as passionate, a selfless friend as well as a selfless lover. Gil had seemed to be that way at first--still seemed to be, quite often. He seemed to take genuine delight in giving pleasure as well as receiving it, not only in bed. He seemed to find gratification in the small gifts he gave to Remus, in the meals he prepared for them both. But, for all that Remus had tried to tell himself otherwise, there was still a mercenarial cant to their relationship. Gil _expected_ things from him, wanted deference and obedience in return for what affection he could give, for in some way it cost him to give it. He rendered it as a service, as surely as Remus had done when they had first known one another.

With Gil, it had never stopped being a trade, not really. They had only renegotiated the terms.

With Sirius, he had felt his care and his desire reciprocated freely and willingly, had felt _equal connection_. 

But it must have been an act, of course, a fantasy designed to lead him down whatever garden path Sirius pleased. That would explain why a _real_ affair, with Gil, felt so different, felt so much more like work.

Of _course_ a honeytrap would be sweeter than this. Sirius was right to call him a fool.

On the other hand, some desperate part of Remus whispered, it might have been that the only time Sirius had ever been genuine with him was when he was on his back or on his knees. 

It _had_ to have been real, at least when they were boys, before Sirius had been convinced or forced to turn his back on them in favour of his cruel family. Surely no lad of that age, not even one reared in a serpent's nest, could be capable of seducing an enemy in an attempt to turn the tide of a war--and anyhow there could have been no way for him to know then what role Remus would play in the events that were to come. There couldn't have been an ulterior motive then for offering up that peach on a springtrapped platter. 

He should have taken it when he'd had the chance.

Remus would always regret that he hadn't had the courage to fully consummate their--whatever they had had--until they'd been reunited after leaving school. Had it been too late, even then? Had Sirius' time abroad with his uncle already changed him, shaped him into the heir his family had wanted all along? It was the earliest he could have turned--or been compromised--and it would have meant all his work with the Order had been a double-agent's act, but he _couldn't_ have been on their enemy's side any earlier than that.

It didn't add up--it _couldn't_ have been that long a game. It was alright to _want_ to believe that it had been real, at least for a time, he told himself.

Remus stopped his aimless pacing when he realised he had burned his cigarette down to the filter. He flicked it into the cold, dead hearth with an annoyed scoff.

All of that was over with, he told himself sternly. He was with Gil now, and clearly for the better.

He repeated the thought to himself. And again.

He heaved a sigh and crossed to the bookshelf, and with still-shaking hands, he drew out the tartan patterned thermos Rolf had brought him, uncapped it, and poured out another small measure of the seething purplish brew, barely a mouthful.

Before he could second-guess himself, he sucked in a breath and held it while he gulped the foul and toxic potion down.

After a time, feeling much steadier, Remus wiped the poison off his lips with the back of his hand before he stepped into the bedroom again. He slipped back into the bed with his friend, waking him with a rough touch between his strong thighs. "No, don't kiss me," he rumbled, terse, when Gil sighed and leaned up with parted lips.

The full moon was bloody miserable.

It fell on the night before Christmas Eve that year, and there was a snowstorm.

Gil suggested he stay in, take the potion at home, remain safe and warm, curled up tame on the carpet at his feet--with puffed chest, he valiantly declared that he wasn't afraid of Remus.

The suggestion rankled for no reason he could name, set his teeth on edge and made his pulse do strange things. He told himself it was only that he was horribly anxious at the thought of what he might do if something went wrong with the potion, if the dosage wasn't high enough or if the purity was compromised, and when his friend pressed the matter it put him on the edge of what he would admit was panic, if he were ever honest with himself. He shrugged off Gil's grip and threw on his cloak, took up the bottle of potion Abus had sent, and apparated to the cobbles outside the old churchyard with a resonating _crack_.

The old dog greeted him as he stepped onto the consecrated ground, and followed him when he ignored it, past the tombstones to the farthest corner of the churchyard, backed into a small space near a wall of the crumbling church. Here he drank down his potion, and waited until what must have been the last minute before he undressed hastily and huddled under his cloak to keep himself warm.

He tried to put himself out of his own mind for the icy and bonebreaking transformation, tried to pretend it was happening to someone else. It didn't get it over with any sooner.

He raised his muzzle to find the old black dog watching him, patient and aloof with the weight of age. They watched each other for a long moment, and then Remus laid down in a heap where he stood, whining his submission and his misery.

The old dog moved closer and sat against his side to try and give him a bit of warmth, though it didn't really work, for the poor thing was already as cold as the grave.

After a time, when he was as recovered from his transformation as he could be, and reasonably assured his sanity was intact, Remus got up and took himself on four feet to the churchyard gate, where he could sit in the shadows and watch the town street without being seen. The dog followed him and sat beside him again.

All night, the two kept watch over the village. All night, there was no sign or sound of any werewolf, besides Remus.

Though he was exhausted and shivering by moonset, he forced himself to apparate back to the cottage as soon as he had transformed and dragged his robes and cloak on again, ignoring the risk of dislocation or splinching, for the risk of freezing was worse in this dark before the dawn.

He fumbled with his key in the door and stumbled in to find Gil asleep in one of the armchairs by the fire again, clearly having waited up and dozed off over his tea.

Remus reached out to touch his shoulder, but then he then thought better of it and clasped his hand instead, kneeling beside his chair and leaning over his lap as he woke and stretched.

"Remus--" he began.

"I'm sorry," the werewolf blurted, laying his head down on his friend's lap.

Gil slipped a hand into his hair, petted his forehead with soft strokes of his thumb. "Wshhh," he said, "It's arright, love. You weren't feeling well, that's all. Let's just forget all about it."

Christmas at Keener's Ridge was a subdued affair. After his exertion in the snow, Remus was exhausted and chilled to his crooked-healed bones. Gil took him to bed before the dawn of that Christmas Eve morning and bundled him up in thick quilts, and he slept like the dead--except that he probably shivered a good deal more than most corpses. When he woke in the evening, the winter sun had vanished behind the horizon again, and he could smell richly spiced wassail and roasted meat.

He wrapped himself in the cosy red dressing gown which he had taken to using and padded out into the sitting area to find a warm fire and his friend smiling up at him from the armchair before it, a mug of the hot draught cradled in his hands and a book open on his lap. "Feeling better?" he asked.

Remus helped himself to an orange from the bowl on the mantelpiece before he nodded and dropped himself into the other armchair.

"There's a chicken going," Gil said, offhand. "Sure you don't want to try it?"

"Mm," Remus said with a disgusted grimace, shaking his head as he spiralled the rind off the fruit with a charm.

Gil watched him for a while, seeming puzzled. Finally, as if coming to a sudden decision, he stood and bustled himself into the kitchen at the far end of the small home, returning a few minutes later with another mug of mulled wine.

Remus accepted it and drank it down eagerly, feeling warmed by the bloom of its heat in his chest as he swallowed it down, and grateful for his friend's kind consideration.

He smiled up at Gil then, smitten and content.

As the evening wore on, they ate their supper together and relaxed in front of the hearth, Gil reading out occasional excerpts from his Joyce and Remus half-nodding between them.

Finally, with the fire nearly gone to embers, Gil stood and stretched and gave a loud yawn, startling Remus out of his doze. He offered the werewolf a hand up, and the two took themselves into the small, warm bedroom behind the chimney, where Remus found that, despite his fatigue, he couldn't resist dropping to his knees before the bed and taking Gil in his mouth, warm and gentle as he swelled fully.

He swallowed Gil's seed as eagerly as he had drunk down the wine, and after his friend returned the favour they curled up together and slept again, the whole day having passed for Remus in a blur of comfortable half-consciousness.

In the morning, they ate a hearty breakfast and exchanged their gifts by the hearth, over coffee. For Remus, there was a new suitcase and shaving bag matched in rich chocolate leather, larger and finer and far newer than what he had been using. Gil's gift was a set of three handkercheives in snowy silk, each embroidered with his monogram in a colour he wore often: one sapphire, one lilac, and one vivid emerald. Into the top of the small box which held them Remus had nestled the two peppermint toads from their trip to Hogsmeade, which he had carefully trained to nuzzle and occasionally hump one another.

Gil laughed merrily and set the whole box with its nest of silk on the mantelpiece, saying, "Aw, the little darlings, I'd hate to spoil their fun by eating them," and Remus smiled at him, amused.

They passed the day together amicably, lazily, cloistered up together in the little cottage Remus could now claim as his own, eating sweets and fixing each other tea and lounging in their dressing gowns.

Remus looked up from his small field journal and smiled at Gil, content. 

He really was lucky to have found such a friend, he thought to himself.

On Boxing Day, in the early evening, they dressed and prepared to take themselves into the village. They had been invited by Rolf some days ago to join himself and his grandmother at Mill Cottage for dinner, and, after hearing that Elinor and her young son would be attending, Remus had accepted on behalf of them both, hoping to put himself in the girl's good graces.

He had never spoken to Gil about what must have happened in-between his own conversations with her. He had been, perhaps, afraid to ask, unwilling to think for too long upon the fact that his friend had apparently been comfortable seriously manipulating her over a minor inconvenience.

But then, Remus was in a race against the moon to stop the beast from harming anyone else. Perhaps it was justified.

He suddenly remembered his amusement over the business with the porters when they'd first arrived in Paris. He had forgot entirely about that little prank, for it had seemed so harmless and so charming at the time, but that had been an even pettier matter and one with even slimmer justification, and he had laughed easily over it.

He told himself that it was natural to be more protective of the girl, more understanding of her concerns for her child, than he would have been of grown men momentarily distracted from doing their jobs, and set aside his concerns in the interest of his duty. 

He had no intention of questioning the boy quite yet, but if he could earn Elinor's trust, or that of her son, it might go a long way towards solving this mystery.

When they arrived at Madam Goldstein's cottage, they found Rolf and young Tommen, a dark-haired child of about six or seven, playing merrily in the snow in the front garden. Laughing, Rolf called a greeting and chucked a snowball at the newcomers, and Remus put his wand hand up to stop it in midair and hurl it back where it had started.

"Oi!" Rolf spluttered and wiped the snow from his face. "No fair using wandless magic!" he laughed, and beside him Tommen piped up, "Yeah, no fair!" before he realised he was addressing a stranger and pressed his lips together in a taciturn line. He ducked behind the safety of Rolf's legs and watched as the two men were welcomed into the cottage, as introductions were made and cloaks were peeled off.

"Happy Christmas," Remus told Madame Goldstein with a soft smile as they made their way in to the sitting room.

She hummed a noncommittal acknowledgement of his words, and said, "I, uh, don't celebrate it myself. We always did it for my husband and the boys."

"Oh, I see. Well, in that case, may the new year be kind to you."

The old woman smiled brightly. "Right back at ya."

"Hiya!" Nellie said to him then as she entered from the kitchen and passed him and Gil each a cider. "It's Remus, isn't it? Good to see you again! And who's your friend?"

"The name's _Gilderoy Lockhart_ ," he introduced himself, smiling charmingly and waiting to see if anyone would recognise it.

"Oh of course!" she exclaimed, "You're that writer I've heard about. Welcome to Dovetown!"

He beamed, pleased. "Thank you very much," he told her. "It's a lovely place, reminds me of my time in--"

"Lockhard?" Madam Goldstein asked then, sharp-eyed and sharp-tongued. "The writer?" she asked.

"In the flesh!" he told her with a wink.

"Oh, yeah, I read one of your books, I think," the old woman told him with a puzzled expression. "Something about trolls...?"

"Ah, my sophomore effort--that one was _very_ popular a few years ago, as I understand it."

Remus allowed himself a small, secret smirk when he noticed that Gil was leaning hard into his faux-posh inflection, no doubt to impress the brash old American woman.

"How'd ya get the Norwegian government to let ya into the sanctuary, though? They're real strict about foreigners."

"Oh well," Gil said, waving a dismissive hand, "when you're accustomed to working with such dangerous creatures they do tend to make accommodations."

Madam Goldstein frowned. "Hunh," she said. "Yeah, I guess so."

Rolf rolled his eyes. "No one wants to talk about _books_ , Gran."

"Food's ready anyhow!" Nellie piped up from the kitchen doorway. "Cleansing charms, everyone!" she added with a wiggle of her fingers and a pointed look at her little one.

The dinner was quite traditional in character. Remus helped himself to vegetables and mash and bread, and pumpkin pasties and marzipan cake, and the rest of the party was so distracted by Tommen's antics and the paper crackers and Gil's fantastical stories that no one noticed he ate no meat.

They passed the evening pleasantly, gossiping about village news and sharing drinks while Rolf kept Tommen occupied on the carpet with his new train set. Remus found the night picturesque, homey--like being back at Hogwarts, with his old friends, or like the Christmases he could remember of his early childhood, in a cottage very much like this, somewhere not so far from here.

And to think, a quiet evening of holiday cheer with new friends, here in the homeland he had fled--it had been a luxury he couldn't afford for such a long time.

True night had fallen by the time all present were startled by a sudden and emphatic pounding at the door.

Madam Goldstein exchanged an ominous look with Rolf before she rose from her seat, drew her wand, and approached the door.

Alert now, Remus slipped his wand hand into his pocket and rose as well, stepping protectively in front of Gil and Nellie and the boys.

"Who is it?" the old woman called.

Muffled and distraught, a deep and gravelly male voice from the other side of the door cried out, "Mum-- _please!_ You have to let me in!"

The childish fear apparent in the plea seemed incongruent with its rough timbre.

Madam Goldstein sagged, defeated, and opened the door, wand still in hand. "Lysander--" she began, but the scruffy wolf pushed into the room and slammed the door shut behind himself before he bent to clasp his mother in a desperate embrace, trembling and with his eyes screwed shut like a boy who'd just woken from a nightmare.

" _It's following me_ ," he rasped against her shoulder, taking no notice of the others--not even Remus, standing just behind Madam Goldstein with his hand still clutching the handle of his own wand in his pocket.

"Shh," she said, returning his embrace and petting his back despite whatever history lay between them. " _What's_ following you, honey?" she asked him.

"The--the _creature!_ " Lysander seemed utterly demented, and on the verge of tears. "It won't leave me alone!"

Remus stepped forward slowly. "Show me," he said, his voice gentle.

Lysander looked up at him, startled, and then took in the others: Rolf, watching wide-eyed, Nellie, clutching her child to her front and glaring suspiciously at the wolf-man, Gil, frozen with alarm as he waited for the scene to play out.

Grim-faced, Lysander nodded. He took a breath and squeezed his hands into fists to steady himself. "Yeah, alright. Come on," he said. 

Madam Goldstein moved to join them as Lysander turned towards the door. "This could be dangerous," Remus told her in an undertone, holding up a hand to signal her to remain in place.

"Hey, buster--I used to be an Auror, ya know," she told him.

"All the more reason for you to stay with the others, in case they need protection," Remus said, cool. 

The old woman narrowed her eyes at him and pressed her lips into a rueful smirk. "All right, have it your way," she said with a shrug. "But I'll be watching if you boys need help."

Remus glanced towards Gil where he sat, expectant.

"Ah--" Gil said, rising stiffly to his feet and drawing his golden-red wand. "Shall I--?"

"Help Madam Goldstein look after the others," Remus ordered him, terse, and Gil nodded, wide-eyed. "And keep your foe-glass out."

"Absoutely," he said. His courage was obviously feigned, but his bravado was charming enough. "Leave it to me."

Remus nodded and turned his eyes towards Lysander, and then the two wolves stepped out together into the night.

It was eerie quiet--only the soft, crystalline whisper of snowflakes touching one another could be heard in the stillness. The waning gibbous moon gave enough light to see that the snow-blanketed valley with its hedge of thicket was undisturbed except by Lysander's own prints across the meadow. The red fellow glanced about himself, uneasy, before setting off to retrace them with Remus at his heels, opposite the direction of the village and onto the dales.

"Are you certain you saw it?" Remus asked. "Tonight?"

"Ay," the other werewolf grunted.

As they came to the crest of a small rise, Lysander reached out with steely fingers and gripped Remus' forearm. "There!" he said, flinging up an arm to point at white nothingness.

"Where?" Remus asked softly, following the other werewolf's gaze.

"It's there--can't you see it?"

"I'm sorry, Lysander," Remus said, "I don't see anything."

Whatever the red fellow saw must have moved then, for he lurched backwards, away from it, crying out with alarm.

For the first time, Remus began seriously to consider the possibility that there _was_ no creature.

"I don't understand," Remus told him. "There's nothing there."

"No," Madam Goldstein said from some distance behind them then, startling Remus. "I see it too."

Remus half-turned to regard her with surprise as she stepped closer. "What?"

She pointed in the same direction with her drawn wand. "Right there," she said, matter-of-fact. "On the top of the hill. It looks like a huge werewolf--why isn't it attacking?"

"But you know it isn't the full moon," Remus said softly, finally realising that no one had ever claimed this creature only roamed on those nights--he'd made that assumption himself. In fact, if those among the wild werewolves who didn't take the potion remembered encountering it, then they _had_ to have seen it in their _human_ forms. Lysander had been right all along. "It really _can't_ be a werewolf," he pointed out.

"Well, I don't know what else you'd call it," she insisted. "It's right there, black as pitch--how can you not see it?"

"Black as...?" His breath left him in a rush then; he felt gut-punched. Remus cursed softly to himself at his own stupidity. "It isn't a werewolf," he ground out, stiff. "But I know what it is."

"What?" Lysander asked. "What is it?"

"I'm very sorry, but I don't believe I ought to be the one to tell either of you." Remus said. "Please, trust me when I tell you that it will not harm you." He turned his back to the unseen creature and began to move towards the cottage again, calm now. He set a reassuring hand on Lysander's shoulder. "I promise you," he said then, "that beast will never harm you. It hasn't the capacity."


	6. Paris Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One mystery is solved, and another can no longer be ignored. Our heroes' triumphant return and our hero's final turning point.

In the end, Gil was terribly annoyed that so much of what he'd drafted of their time in Dovetown had to be scrapped, but Remus insisted upon it. Given that the creature could only be found in England, it would have been impossible to record any comprehensible version of what had really happened without revealing at least broadly the place where the events had occurred. Remus was firm in his position that the details and setting must be obfuscated, to protect the innocent werewolves of Dovetown as much as to keep Order business under wraps, and it seemed Gil truly understood the dilemma, for he didn't press much beyond pouting. It was possible his realisation that Remus was still quite under the thumb of the Dumbledores whether he wanted to be or not had shaken his stubborn confidence.

And so the whole chapter was given up for a bad job, and was burnt in the hearth over brandy and ginger biscuits on their last night in Remus' little cottage, perched on its high and treacherous ridge.

Once the villagers were assured that the huge black beast had nothing to do with the werewolves, and that the deaths that followed its appearance would always be unavoidable and nonviolent, the sentiment towards the unfortunate victims eking out their existence in the nearby wilds relaxed somewhat. In exchange for clearing their name, Remus was able to extract a promise from Lysander to move his camp farther into the deep wood and to keep the members of his pack from 'being seen' scrounging in the village--and in exchange for this carefully-worded concession Elinor agreed to take up a collection at her shop so that those townspeople who felt generous might subsidise wolfsbane and other aid for those among the werewolves who wanted it. Rolf remained the chief contributor and administrator of this fund.

Remus was not overly optimistic about the longevity of the agreement, but, with his duty technically discharged, he was able to report success to Aberforth, and he and Gil were able to move on, for now. The cottage would be left empty like Alphard's flat until it was needed again, another of Remus' oft-abandoned safehouses.

Rolf and Tommen would remain happily in the village, or as happily as possible anyway, considering their circumstances. In the end Remus saw no reason to trouble the younger boy with an interview--the unfortunate incident which had infected the child being after all completely unconnected to the troublesome beast that truly lay at the heart of the disturbance he had been sent to investigate.

At Remus' insistence, they left Dovetown just after the new year, and at Gil's insistence, they travelled from there to London by train and hired a small, cheap room together above a wizarding pub not far from the hidden district of Diagon Alley. He said he had missed civilisation, and catered food, and that he would require all the comforts of a proper city and the continued company of men who spoke a tongue he knew to most efficiently replace the months of work that had been lost.

Gil would spend some weeks holed up in their room creating from whole cloth a nonsensical story of werewolves infiltrating a quaint French village in human form, in order to lure the townspeople into willing infection. Their dashing protagonist exposed the plot in a matter of weeks, fought off the sinister leader of the pack in a thrilling eleventh-hour duel just before the moonrise, and recovered safely the child who had been abducted and threatened with infection, before vanishing into the sunset to live happily ever after--until the next book, at least--with the pretty wolf-girl whore whom he had rescued from a hard-knock life of ignominy and disrepute.

Altogether a satisfying ending, naturally.

He had asked little of Remus since their arrival in the city, in work or in any other capacity, writing feverishly and alone. He accepted tea when Remus brought it, could be coaxed away for meals and for sleep and for the things that often fell between them, but for the most part, Remus had found this time rather boring and lonely.

One afternoon, with the full moon again fast approaching and a tremor in his hands that he refused to acknowledge, Remus carefully counted out the exact price of a single dose to stop himself doing something stupid, and then he took himself into the hidden shopping district and down Knockturn Alley, to see if the apothecary he had used to frequent there was still in operation.

Standing on the corner across from the place, Remus took a deep breath to steady himself. This little stretch of street was too-familiar to him, too-haunting--though it too had changed since he had last been back, like everything else here at home.

This was one of the places he had used to stalk silently, in the earliest days of his strange career, before the invention of the wolfsbane potion had forced him into a new mission. He had used to watch the place for James, to report to his friend on the comings and goings of those wizards who required components for dark rituals and legally-restricted potions. In those days, he had felt that his work for the Order had held a noble purpose: they had all worked together to defeat the so-called dark lord, in hope of creating a better world for those who would come after themselves.

Now, what was left of the Order was a scattered network of broken connections, scrabbling about aimlessly to set right the small and miscellaneous crimes of petty tricksters and desperate derelicts, and any connection Remus might once have had to the future generations of England's wizarding population was now severed permanently.

As he finished his cigarette, he wondered seriously if it might indeed be possible to vanish into the wilderness of the continent, or into the anonymous masses of some distant foreign city, once and for all, with Gil.

But of course it was impossible. Even if Fawkes couldn't somehow track him wherever he went, even if he managed to keep himself hidden from all the other far-flung members of the Order, even if he found some way to entirely alter his identity and even his appearance... Even then, Gil would still be famous. 

He would never give it up if he had any choice in the matter, Remus knew--even if storytelling hadn't been a true passion for him, the adoration of his fans would always keep him hooked.

And if Albus already knew of their friendship, if he suspected what was hidden within it, then finding Remus would always be as easy as finding a man who made it his business to be the centre of attention. Just as before, the only way he could ever disappear would be alone.

Remus sighed and banished his cigarette end. No, there was nothing for it. Just like the deep wood that surrounded Hogwarts, there had never been any way out but through.

There wasn't any balcony or terrace here, so when Gil smoked at home now, he would slide up the skinny window alongside the bed and hang his head and shoulders out over the trainyard below, watching with interest as the trains passed, screechy and rumbly all at once.

"Did you get your potion?" Gil asked over his shoulder when Remus returned.

"Mm-hmm." He slipped it out of his pocket and set it on the bureau by the door before he crossed to lean against the window frame and watch his friend smoke.

Gil offered him a cigarette, and he accepted though he'd had one not long ago.

"How's the work coming?" Remus asked after he lit it.

Gil waved a dismissive hand. "This part's all formulaic," he said. "It's just a slog."

"I'm happy to help," Remus offered, not for the first time.

He shrugged. "Honestly it'll go faster if you leave it to me." He seemed a bit off, Remus thought, tired or feeling ill again, or perhaps just grumping.

"If you've finished any new scenes, I could look them over," he tried.

"Mm," Gil said, seeming indecisive.

"Do you want to go out?" Remus suggested. "Have you eaten?"

Gil shrugged and put his cigarette out and conceded that it would be nice.

They ate their supper at the pub below, lamb stew for Gil and the proprietor's new bride's secret lentil curry recipe for Remus, and after a couple of pints each, Remus coaxed his friend into a stroll through the frigid city.

They wandered south through tame muggle streets past shops and churches, soon coming to a place where they could cross a stretch of park to the walk along the bank of the Thames, and Gil perked up noticeably at the sight of the water.

"Ah, Remus," he said of the grimy waterway in his own accent some minutes later, leaning out over the iron railing and inhaling deeply of the fishy muck smell, "I know it isn't really the sea, but this is as close as I've been to home in years."

Remus watched him for a moment. "I'm sorry that it would have been difficult for me to travel there," he said, feeling awkward. "I'm certain that we could find a way there one day, if that's what you really want."

Gil shook his head, though. "Ah sure it'd be nice to visit the island again. But did you ever hear, Remus, that you can't go home again?"

He nodded.

"Well... most people who say that mean that when you get there, you find that the place that used to be your home isn't really your home any longer. But some of us really never can go back."

Stunned, Remus stared down at his friend as he watched the water. "Did your family... disapprove of...?" he trailed off, figuring that the trait he referenced was self-evident.

Gil laughed now, self-depreciating most likely, and said, "Ah, no, nothing like that--I never gave 'em the chance." He straightened away from the railing, seeming exhilarated now, and said to Remus in his false inflection, "Anyway, wouldn't you rather go back to Paris next?" He patted his waistcoat pocket to indicate the lavender bloom portkey kept there with a smug and charming grin.

And Remus smiled.

A few nights later, Gil had been convinced to set aside his work again for an early supper taken in the room before the moonrise, and over red wine, as they polished off the last of the gulab jamun Priyanka had sent up with their order, he leaned forward and clasped Remus' wand hand with his own, suddenly serious.

"I want you to stay in with me tonight," he said, softly insistent.

"Gil, I--"

"I won't allow you to risk yourself here," he said, his tone almost haughty. "We have what we need for the book, and you don't have a mission here. We'll not be staying, so you've no reason to go poking around looking for trouble to get into next month."

Remus sat still with his glass halfway from his lips to the table, frozen by the clash between his anxiety and his gratitude for such a compassionate friend. "It's too dangerous," he ground out after a moment. "If the potion were to fail--"

"That's an excuse and you know it! If you were worried about that, you wouldn't go out in the city, would you? If the potion fails out there what do you think happens?"

Remus shut his mouth, stunned, and finally set his glass down.

"I know you," Gil said, a touch proud. "You wouldn't put innocent people in danger to protect me. You know the potion works."

A long moment passed. Finally, Remus nodded.

"You just don't want me to see you like that, do you? You'd rather take the risk of being hurt, or freezing to death, or being caught by the Aurors than to let me see you as you really are. It's true, isn't it?"

Remus nodded again, stiff and resentful of the phrasing, but with rapidly-fluttering heart.

Gil bit his lower lip, seeming wounded. "But it's me," he added.

"It isn't... a pleasant thing to see," Remus told him. 

"Merlin, I know that!" Gil sipped angrily at his wine, then set it down quickly as if he was disgusted with it, and stood to stare out the window at the trainyard again. After a moment, he said, "Would you let _him_ see you like that?"

Remus blanched. "That's different," he blurted without thinking.

Gil turned back, horrified. "So you _would_? You _did_?"

"It was--a different situation," he reiterated.

"Why?" Gil demanded. "What was different?"

"I can't talk about that," Remus said, feeling very tense. He stood and began to gather his effects and his cloak for his evening out.

The other man paused, gears turning behind his blue eyes. "Was he a werewolf too?" he guessed after a moment.

"No." Not exactly.

Gil watched him for a time, silent, before he said, "Did you love him?"

Remus ignored the question.

"Do you still? Do you love him more than me?"

"I'm not going to discuss this with you." He turned towards the door.

Gil stepped rapidly towards him and caught his right wrist in a stern grip, anchoring him with a physical strength that shouldn't have been surprising by now. "If you really love me," he plead, tight-voiced, "you'll stay in with me tonight instead of risking yourself over nothing!"

He froze. "Gil," he said, calm, "you're hurting me."

The other man released his grip on Remus' scarred wrist now, startled, and Remus stood still, feeling incapacitated.

"I want you to be safe," Gil said then. "Just--just stay in, please. I won't watch, I'll go down and get another room if that's what you want."

Remus sighed. "That isn't necessary," he said, unclasping his cloak.

When Remus woke the next morning, he found that he had quite wrecked the bed, not by lack of control, but by the simple fact that last night he had been too large and too awkward for the cramped room, and his claws had been too sharp for the linens. He came to sprawled bruised and naked on his front on a mattress skewed crooked on the frame, with his head in Gil's lap and torn sheets tangled round them both. His friend lay half-sitting up against the headboard, propped on what was left of the pillows, petting his hair.

He groaned brokenly, moving to cover his face with both hands and curling into a tight coil against the other man's leg. He remembered the night, of course, but he didn't want to. He told himself sternly that he was too tired and he ached too much to allow himself the luxury of embarrassment, but he felt heat across his face and tightness in his chest. "I'm sorry," he croaked, broken-voiced, into his fingers.

"Merrlin, what for?" Gil asked, leaving off threading his fingers through Remus' hair and moving to turn his chin up with a gentle touch.

Remus complied, but he kept his eyes down. "I'm sorry that you had to see that," he said, stiff. "I--"

Gil shushed him and shifted his weight, scooting down to make himself level with Remus and wrapping him snug in strong arms. Remus let him do it, but he stiffened with alarm, or shame, or something of the sort--he wasn't sure.

He wanted to get up and dress and take himself out into the city to forget himself for a time, but he had to admit to himself that he hadn't the strength, so he shut his eyes and tried to relax his tense muscles, and waited for the embrace to end.

Finally, his friend kissed his forehead and pulled away. "You're a magnificent creature," Gil told him, and it felt like a knife.

He sat up, turning his back on the other man and kicking his feet out from the crooked bed, resting there a moment before he was able to stand and carry himself over scattered dishes and a toppled dining chair into the small en-suite.

It was some time before he was able to complete his ablutions, and as he bathed, slowly and stiffly, he could feel the warm buzz of his friend's magic from the other room, pulling at him like a compass. When he returned, wrapped in the Gryffindor-red dressing gown, he found that Gil had commanded a breakfast tray and must have been practising his cleansing and repair charms, for the room was mostly set right again, aside from the bundle of ruined linens awaiting attention in the middle of the bare mattress. He thanked his friend with a soft kiss upon the corner of his mouth and settled himself at the small table to eat.

He would spend the next days resting in the room while Gil worked silently, reenacting their old routine from their days abroad. This place wasn't an opulent home like Alphard's flat, wasn't as luxurious as the fine hotels they had used to frequent--after their time in that shabby little cottage in Yorkshire, and now, being here in a dingy room in London again, Remus felt that things had come quite close to what had once been normal for him.

Some days after the full moon, Gil took them out to dine at a fine restaurant in celebration of his own birthday, carefree and careless with his gold--but the next morning, quietly and shamefacedly over coffee, the other shoe dropped.

"We _will_ have to return to Paris soon," Gil said, hesitant in his admission. He looked away, focusing his attention on his teaspoon where it lay on the small table. "I _was_ hoping to finish the manuscript by the end of the month and stay in London for a while, but I don't think I'll make it." He bit his lip then, cheeks pinkening charmingly. "We've the room until the 31st, but after that..."

"Ah," Remus said, realising the problem. He took a deep breath to steady himself. "How... How desperate is the situation?"

"Oh no, no, it's nothing like that..." he trailed off.

"Gil?"

"It's fine, it'll be fine! We'll just have to stay someplace that's already paid fer and finish the book by the end of February, don't worry a jot! My publisher's positively chomping at the bit, he's dyin' to throw gold at me!"

"This wouldn't have happened if I hadn't insisted on rewrites..." Remus said to himself, realising it as he spoke.

"No, no, don't be too hard on yourself, you weren't to know."

"I would be glad to help with the work--" Remus began.

"No, no," Gil said, "At this point it requires an experienced hand on the reins." He leaned over the table to pat Remus' hand where it lay. "Don't you worry yourself, I'll take care of everything."

Saint Valentine's Day, which Gil had hinted at with some excitement since the new year, was approaching fast when he folded the final few scenes into the folio that held their manuscript and packed it into the hand valise he always carried when they travelled.

Now that the final flush of creation was over, there remained only proofing, careful checking of continuity, perhaps a few scenes cut out or stitched in here and there to make a point more clearly or to remove distraction, perhaps some additional aesthetic details thrown in to liven up the setting.

This part, Gil said, would be easy--with all the structure laid now, they could take their time over the next month, really put the polish on it. He said that his mysterious publisher had cheerfully approved what he had seen so far, and, with a convincing smile, he assured Remus that all would be well again soon.

And so finally, just in time to spare Gil's purse, they returned to Paris, using the lavender-bloom portkey Remus had bound to Alphard's flat.

Remus carried his own new suitcase and his friend's single trunk up to the bedroom to reunite them with the rest of Gil's baggage, opened all the drapes, and came back down to start a fire in the hearth while his friend unpacked their writing supplies in the library room.

What had been a depressing squat when he'd first found it years ago now seemed to be the fine and welcoming home it must once have been. Remus smiled fondly at the brightly-upholstered chaises, at the gilt-framed parrots, at the view from the tall windows and over the narrow balcony--and his grin turned a touch lascivious as he cast his eyes over the bearskin where they had first lain together.

He was beginning to feel quite comfortable here, with Gil. The honeymoon was over by now, certainly, and the initial spell cast by base attraction and by novelty in sex was now worn thin, but a different force had taken its place. He knew his friend, understood his moods and his occasional malaise by now. Remus was learning how to keep the peace when things were bad and how to appreciate the times when things were good, even if _good_ with Gil wasn't the same as good with another.

He could be happy like this, he told himself, now that he was learning how to accept his new lover for what he really was, rather than seeing him as a shadow of or a substitute for Sirius.

He wondered what would happen when the book was finished. He knew Gil's writing covered many topics, and diverse creatures, and it was unlikely he would have much use for a werewolf-spy after this, unless he began to specialise in stories of lycanthropy. Remus knew he was qualified enough to track and if necessary to dispatch other dark creatures, for in the early days of his errantry he had taken up his father's distasteful profession for a time, travelling to find odd jobs as an exterminator or hunter in various wizarding communities. 

It hadn't been a proud living, or a comfortable one. He had been bloody good at it, to be fair, but he had hated himself for doing it, and considering the rarity of the work, he had found his strength sapped by the hardship. It had become progressively more and more difficult to continue with any degree of success, and so he had eventually begun to accept other sorts of offers. He swiftly put _that_ thought out of his head.

He would have preferred not to take it up again, but if it was what Gil required of him... Well, he would find it difficult to say no. At the very least, if they continued in that way, the bounties Remus claimed might help to keep them fed when the income from Gil's novels couldn't. And if he were to continue Gil's combat training now that his time was his own again and the worst of winter was over with, then his friend might even come to be a great help in the work--they might fare much better as a pair of hunters than Remus had alone, and they could gather more material for Gil's stories along the way, to boot.

Though it wouldn't have been his first choice, it was a workable enough plan. 

He smiled to himself. Yes, he told himself again, they could be happy like this, if they tried, for a time at least--after all, wasn't that all anyone could ask?

That evening, with a serene smile, Remus took the big tea tray in to Alphard's library, levitating it in front of himself.

"Ah!" Gil exclaimed, delighted. "Thank you, love."

Remus' smile brightened. He let the tray come to rest on the baize of the desk and began to pour, first for Gil and then for himself.

His friend took it with cream and sugar. Remus had always preferred it sweet, but black.

He seated himself in his own chair, across the desk from Gil, and sipped quietly at his tea while he watched his friend work.

After a time, Gil finished his paragraph and set his teacup aside, and smiled at Remus and said, "Ah, I can hardly wait to leave for Normandy."

"But you're nearly finished with the manuscript. Do we really need to put in more research before you submit it?"

Gil shrugged. "No, but it's where I'm going when I'm paid. I want you with me." He looked embarrassed for a bare second, but he reached forward to clasp Remus' hand then, suddenly sombre. "I want to ask you something."

"What's that?"

"It's been nearly a year now, hasn't it?"

Remus nodded, flattered that Gil had thought of it.

"It's been good, hasn't it? We've been happy."

"Of course," Remus murmured. "Is something the matter--?"

"No, no, nothing like that," Gil said quickly. "It's only, I wanted to ask--" He looked away and laughed softly at himself. "I dare say it isn't half as romantic as our first night here, but, well--"

"What is it?" Remus asked when he hesitated.

"Do you want to make this permanent?" he asked in a nervous rush.

"Oh," Remus said, "I--"

"I want you to be mine," Gil told him, squeezing his hand, "for always. I want us to keep travelling together, and writing together. We'll find more stories together, and you'l help me line everything up, won't you darling? I want to--" Another nervous laugh. "--I want us to grow old together. I want us to be an--an old married couple."

Remus stared at him.

"Well don't just sit there, say something!"

"I suppose..." Remus said, stiff. "I would have thought..." He stumbled to a halt and blinked.

"Don't you want to?" Gil asked, seeming deeply hurt. "Have I done anything wrong?"

Remus held up a quelling hand. "No, no," he said, sounding far more certain than he felt. "Not at all."

"Well then, what's the matter?"

"Nothing," Remus said. "I--" He cleared his throat. "I suppose it seemed to me that we were already--attempting that," he admitted. "It hadn't occurred to me that we needed to discuss it any further."

"Oh?" Gil said. "I--ah. Huh." He considered this briefly. "So, d'yeh want ta, then?"

Remus hesitated. "I'm not certain it's wise for someone like me to make that sort of promise--or to ask it of you," he said. Gil looked baffled, and hurt, but he went on, "We can never know what might happen in the future. I could be called away for a mission--one where you couldn't follow. I could be killed, or worse: I could lose control of myself. I could become a beast, a monster. I could become cruel or intolerable, or crippled or--" He stopped himself before he could list some of his more unbearable fears. "I would be pleased to carry on with you until--or unless--something goes wrong, or until we no longer make one another happy. But it wouldn't be right to expect you to hold yourself to such an arrangement, considering all that could go wrong," he finished.

Gil watched him with concern, listening intently. "Don't you worry about holding me to it," he said. "I'll worry about that part."

Remus stared, his heart rate speeding and his throat tightening. This was all he had wanted--the only thing he had _ever_ wanted that might have actually come true: an answer to the question of what the future would hold, a friend who would be there whatever life brought.

But how could he ever take anyone up on it, really? 

He drew a breath, tense. Gil's suggestion changed nothing, really, he told himself. They had already allied themselves--hadn't he been musing about what the future would hold for them both, together, only this afternoon, when he'd been reminded of their first night here in Paris? What good was such an alliance if one party or the other expected it to end?

His petty doubts and insecurities over the past months seemed stupid now--of course a friend who could propose a lifelong connection would never step out with the girl from the apothecary, would never lie about his days at school or inflate his adventures simply to make himself seem more a man. And of course he'd accepted Remus' ill temper and flighty nature all along, with good grace--better grace than a werewolf had any right to expect.

"I want you to stay with me," Gil insisted, his voice soft. His hand felt warm where it clasped Remus'. "I want you to be _mine_ ," he repeated, softly insistent, before he murmured something in his softly-slurring Irish that sounded to Remus like _carramacree_ \--a word which he now realised Gil had said to him before, now that he'd grown accustomed to the sounds.

Remus met his eyes and stared at him for a long moment before he nodded. "I already am," he said.

Gil smiled radiantly at him before he put a hand to his forehead, dramatic. "Ah, what am I thinking, I ought take you out! Go on and put on that suit of robes Alphard left, we'll go out for a drink!"

Remus laughed at him, and made embarrassed noises, but of course he eventually complied with his friend's desire.

The club Gil found was large and richly appointed, uncrowded, with comfortable leather armchairs and liveried attendants, like something out of the world into which Remus had watched Sirius vanish all those years ago. He felt uncomfortable here, but his long experience in spycraft allowed him to hide it well.

He smiled serenely a half-pace behind Gil's shoulder as they found their seats, he spoke politely and formally to the staff in their own language as Gil couldn't, he held his crystal goblet carefully--but soon the crisp white wine went to their heads, and they found themselves laughing brightly and fielding dirty looks from other patrons.

When the bottle had been emptied and the dark drew close around the windows that overlooked the city street, they found their feet again and took themselves home, and as soon as they had closed the tall windows that let them into the library from the rooftop terrace, Gil turned to him and clutched him close, crushing the fine material of Alphard's robes under his fingers.

Remus sagged against the wall and bent his neck to accept his friend's passionate embrace. After long, sweet minutes of wine-drunk kisses, Gil pulled away and unfastened his cloak, letting it drop to the Persian carpet. He began to unbutton his overrobe then, and Remus laughed at him, reached out to clasp his wrist in gentle fingers, and soon felt the spark of their resonance as he folded space around them, dropping them both in an unceremonious tumble onto the bed in the next room.

Gil cried out in delighted surprise and righted himself quickly to finish undressing, and Remus laughed at him again, fond.

In the days and weeks to come, Remus would look back on this night with a number of quite conflicting emotions. He thought that he would always remember parts of it fondly, that in some ways it was the final culmination of what felt for all the world like a true affair of the heart, even in the face of what was to come. He would doubt his own resolve when he thought of this night, would second-guess again and again how things had gone so wrong.

And in the end, he would put it out of his mind entirely.

But in this moment, he was entranced by his dear friend as he undid his own robes, by his charming and boyish smile as he leaned close for another sloppy, Champagne-flavoured kiss. 

"You know," Remus said a few minutes later, when he had Gil under him and smiling sweetly, with his slender fingers tight round both their flesh together, "There's something we've never tried."

"Ah--so there is," Gil said with a nervous-sounding laugh.

"If you wanted to try it, I would do my best to make it good for you," Remus said, closing his eyes and leaning down to press his face to his friend's neck as he stroked them both. "You know that I know what I'm doing," he murmured then, made rumbly-voiced by desire and emotion.

"Is that what you want?" Gil breathed.

Remus nodded into the join of his friend's shoulder and neck, savouring the heat and the power of the stout cock in his hand, sliding against his own. "Mm-hmm," he hummed softly, "if it's what you want." 

"Arright," Gil said, with the slightest hint of a break. He nodded decisively, as if trying to convince himself. "Sure, let's."

Remus smiled and kissed him, heart fluttering with the thrill.

"Ah--should I--? Get on hands and knees?"

"If you want to. If it is your first time, you may find it easier to lie on your back, with your knees up."

Gil nodded and moved to comply, and Remus pulled back to let him shift himself, his breath coming faster and his pulse wild in his throat at the thought of finally, fully sinking himself into this affair. He felt drunk--more drunk than the wine could account for, it seemed--and giddy with anticipation, as if he were a boy again.

Remus bent himself to lave his friend's flesh with his tongue then, to nuzzle sweetly at his ballocks and to get the musky scent of him, going muzzy and stupid with the surreal liminality of sex.

It felt like a dream; he felt almost as if he was a passenger in his own body, as if he was moving without force of will. Not an unfamiliar sensation, to be fair.

After a short time, Gil chuckled and squirmed until he pulled away, and Remus used a distracted and sparking _accio_ to retrieve the phial of floral-scented oil, which Gil had bought not long after their first night here in Paris, from his new suitcase.

Smiling down at his friend, at his lover, he slicked his fingers and began his preparations, gentle and slow, feeling half-tranced.

He could feel the pulse of his friend's heart in the throb of his flesh, and it made his own heartstrings thrum with sympathy. Overcome by affection and desire, he finally leaned down and huffed, "Are you ready?" against the other man's ear.

"I think so," Gil breathed, wide-eyed.

Remus took himself in hand then and lined himself up, staring down at his friend with half a snarl and his hair fallen messy over his eyes. He gave a grin that he knew looked more dangerous than he would have made it if he'd felt fully in control of himself, and finally, so very slowly and carefully, he pressed himself forward until the point of penetration had been passed.

He leaned forward to coil one arm tight round the other man's neck, slid his scarred right hand down to fondle him idly, and waited until Gil relaxed and his breath began to come quicker.

"Go on," Gil said, though he was still soft in Remus' hand.

Remus pressed deeper, just enough to feel satisfactorily sheathed, and let out a panting breath as Gil wriggled beneath him. 

"Go on," he said again, half a whimper, and Remus found he couldn't disobey. It felt awkward at first, after so long, like a first time. It _was_ a first time, really, he reminded himself, gasping in deep breaths to fight his dizziness. He moved for some time in headspinning delirium, the rhythm coming back to him easily enough, until he moved to try and kiss the other man and found his mouth stiff and set in a grim line.

He leaned up to gauge his friend's reaction, gasping. He was still soft, and his eyes were screwed tight shut.

"Ah, no--keep going!" he said, though, his eyes fluttering open.

"Are you certain?"

He huffed a breath and nodded. "I want you to finish," he panted.

Remus managed a few more thrusts, but he was beginning to feel unwell, too-drunk and too-dizzy, as he sometimes felt when they drank too much before a romp, and his heart was in his throat. He could feel that his friend was too tense for it, his eyes squeezed shut again and his prick shrivelled soft against his ballocks and his muscles unyielding.

Finally, still gently, he pulled away, trying to stop his disappointed exhalation from becoming an audible sigh.

"Wait, I'm sorry--! We can--!"

"You don't need to apologise," Remus told him. "I only stopped because you're not enjoying yourself."

"I'm sorry," Gil said again, anxiety in his voice.

Remus rearranged his long limbs carefully until he was laying on his side next to his friend. He reached a hand out to clasp his then, where it lay outstretched on the mattress.

"It's alright," Remus told him, still breathing heavily. "It was lovely. I'm halfway to too drunk anyhow. We can try again some other time--if you want to, that is."

Gil regarded him for a moment with wide eyes--Remus had the impression he was trying to make himself say something he didn't want to admit.

Remus squeezed his hand in what he hoped was a comforting way. "Only if you want to," he murmured, casting his eyes down to their joined hands.

Gil watched him, thoughtful, with his brows drawn up in the middle. "I _do_ want to," he eventually said, seeming decisive. "Only... maybe not yet?"

Remus nodded his understanding before he turned to lean down and press a kiss to the boy's forehead. "If that's what you want," he said.

Gil nodded at him, still seeming anxious.

Remus released his hand with a gentle pat. "I'm going to have a shower," he said, honest. He reached up to pet Gil's hair, to tangle his fingers fondly through his curls. "Go to sleep now."

When Remus brought himself to bed later, he had no way of knowing that this was the last night they would spend happily together, the last time they could trust one another. He had no way of knowing that everything would change so drastically and so terribly in the morning, but somehow he felt quite uneasy, and quite eager for the comfort of his friend's strong arms, for the reassurance that, for now at least, he had a place in the world with someone who was kind to him.

He fell asleep curled tightly round his friend's back, with his nose in his soft blond curls and the soothing rhythm of his lightly-snoring breath to lull him into sleep.

In the morning, he found himself alone.

He could hear from the kitchen downstairs the clang of pots and the sizzle of grease in pans. He lifted his suitcase onto the end of the bed and rummaged through it for clean underthings, dressed quickly, and took his shaving kit into the bath, smiling contentedly to himself all the while.

He unpacked his shaving things and laid them out on the rim of the pedestal sink, unwrapping his new soap and dropping the paper into the bin--but he paused when a flash of bright pink caught his eye. 

The little wastebin should have been empty--he'd banished the rubbish from it himself before they'd engaged the nasturtium portkey to Yorkshire. He leaned over, curious, and brought out a bit of pink crêpe paper, crumpled and smashed, and the small, otherwise-empty carton which had half-contained it. A new cologne, perhaps, or one of the preparations Gil used to keep his skin so fair and boyish?

He turned the carton in his fingertips to read the print on one side.

He blinked.

He read the words again more slowly, carefully cataloguing each language he knew to be sure he hadn't misread.

His breath left him in a rush, his stomach dropped, and he watched as the fellow in the mirror cast his eyes away to the side and pressed a hand over his mouth--not shocked, but regretful. Resigned.

"Did you know?" he asked the other Remus.

The fellow in the mirror shrugged. "Didn't you?"

"Why didn't you say anything?"

The other Remus stared at him for a long moment. "Because I remember what you've forgotten," he eventually said.

Remus' eyebrows leapt with surprise, but the other's didn't. "What does _that_ mean?"

"It means that it's time you realised you deserve better than this." The Remus in the mirror pointed with his eyes towards the door then. "Go on."

Remus stared for another too-long moment before he drew a deep breath, collapsed the small carton along its seamlines with nimble fingers, and slipped it into his trouser pocket, alongside Sirius' little knife.

He slipped his razor and his soap and brush back into his kit and zipped it up, abandoning his plan to shave. He stepped through into the bedroom, glancing first at the foot of the bed where his suitcase lay open and half-unpacked and then at the dressing table where Gil had laid out his specs and his pocketwatch and his wand the night before.

Impulsive, heart pounding, Remus reached out with one hand as he stepped past, and with a quick motion he knocked Gil's rigid golden-red wand into a roll, so that it fell between the dressing table's surface and the mirror mounting it, and wedged itself down behind the drawers.

He sparked a little sticking-charm against the surface of the table, not permanent, but enough to delay an _accio_ or a set of fumbling fingers for a few moments.

With quick, sure steps he made his way down the stairs and into the kitchen, where he found Gil pouring coffee in his lilac dressing gown, smiling contentedly to himself.

"Gil," he said, unable to keep the stern bark out of his voice. "I need to speak with you about something."

His friend looked up, startled, and when he saw Remus' tight-lipped and drawn expression, his own face fell. "What is it?" he asked immediately, sounding dismayed. "What's wrong, love?"

Remus huffed a breath through flaring nostrils. "Don't 'love' me," he snapped, only realising the double meaning as he said it.

"I--"

"What is this?" he said, trying hard and failing to keep his voice level, as he held out the flattened carton from his pocket, with its sad, crumpled beard of bright crêpe.

"What? I don't--"

"Tell me where this came from."

"Well, I don't know, Merrlin, it's just a bit of--"

"Look at it," Remus said, stepping closer.

"I don't have my specs," he yelped, sounding helpless. "It's just a bit of rubbish off the street, what's that got to do with me? You're acting like a madman!"

"You know perfectly well this is the wrapping from a bottle of love potion," Remus snapped. "How long has this been going on?"

His friend regarded him with wide eyes, brows drawn up and biting his lower lip.

"Gil," Remus prompted, a deep and dangerous warning in his tone.

"Alright," he said, half a whimper. "It's mine. Wait, but it isn't what it seems--!"

Remus had straightened his back and begun to turn away--he paused and cast his gaze towards the other man, but didn't turn his body back at all.

"Please, let me explain--!" He went on in a rush before Remus could consent. "I only bought it because I was afraid you were losing interest! I wanted you to remember what you'd seen in me! But I swear to you, I never used it--I lost my nerve. I poured it out."

Surprised, Remus turned to face him fully again. "Is that true?"

Gil nodded, miserable, looking away now with guilt written heavy across his brow.

"When did you buy it?" he asked, voice low.

"In--in the summer. After we'd been in Paris for a month or two. I felt as if you were... pulling away." He stood now with his golden head bent and his arms wrapped protectively around himself, staring down at Alphard's chequered tiles. He put Remus in mind of a lower-form student caught at something naughty, and he didn't much like that it made him feel like a prefect again--the role had never suited him. "I kept it until we left for Yorkshire," Gil went on, "but I couldn't ever bring myself to use it. I--I poured it out when I was packing. I thought I wouldn't need it after all, if things were better in the country..." He trailed off and sat himself down with weary resignation in one of the kitchen chairs.

Remus heaved a deep sigh, uncertain.

"Was I right, Remus?" Gil asked. "Things were better, weren't they? You were happier, for a while. Weren't you?"

Remus swallowed drily. He wanted to snap at his friend not to change the subject, but to Gil's way of thinking, it was apparently the same subject... and that was the problem, wasn't it? His words implied that he still felt he would have needed it to use it, would have been justified in secretly dosing him if things hadn't improved on their own--or if they hadn't seemed to improve.

"Remus?" Gil asked now, tentative. "Remus, I just wanted to make you happy."

"I need you to promise me that you have never drugged me in order to manipulate my emotions."

Gil nodded, too-eager, too-submissive. "I promise," he said, too-easy.

Remus' tongue darted out to briefly probe the sensitive and fibrous line of scar tissue that bisected his own lower lip, and then he closed his teeth over it, sending a buzz of nerve-shock through the damaged flesh. "I need some time alone," he announced in a dull, tight voice, turning away.

"Remus, please--!" Gil called, half-rising from his seat.

"I'm going out for a while," he explained, stiff. "We will discuss this when I return."

Remus wandered aimlessly through muggle streets he didn't know for a long time, trying to lose track of his lanky body for a while if he couldn't shake his train of thought.

After all his years of spycraft for the Order, during the war and in the years following it, Remus now prided himself on his better-than-average ability to spot the guilt that spoke of a lie. A person often didn't make it easy to see where, in all their words, that lie was hidden, but the smell of it on the tongue was hard to disguise completely.

He'd learnt that from Sirius.

And after having known Gil for all this time, after having grown accustomed to his tells and after having caught him in lies before... Well, he'd reeked of it today.

And if Gil _had_ poured out the potion, unused, before they'd left Paris, and carelessly tossed the evidence in the bin--well then where was the _bottle_?

How many times had he eaten or drunk with Gil, or in front of him, in the time they had known each other? How many times had he found himself half-giddy with warm contentment, drawn more passionately and more urgently to his friend after a meal? How many times had he laid aside grievances and insecurities, forgot entirely the moment wine or tea touched his lips? How many times had he bent himself to his friend's will against his preference or against his better judgement, and how many of those times had he been drugged into it--forced, really?

He'd thought he was happy, for a lot of that time. 

Had any of his feelings ever been genuine?

Those heartfluttering nights on the train as he'd come to realise what he had hoped might come of this affair, that first night here in Paris when they had become lovers in truth rather than merely in practice, even that first, thrilling tryst in Bucharest and the relief he had felt when Gil had accepted him for all that he was, such a short time later--had it all been an artificial high, a prolonged drug-fuelled bender forced on him by a lover he wouldn't have chosen?

His first impulse was to tell himself that it didn't bear consideration, to force the thought from his mind and to return home and carry on as if he'd never peered down into that wastebasket. Surely, he could make himself take Gil at his word, for the sake of the happiness he had known with him--for the sake of the comfort he provided, whispered a small, treacherous part of Remus.

But it was too much. He hadn't even known that he was approaching a backbreaking straw, but now, with this final, tiny, insignificant-seeming piece of this puzzle dropped so snugly into place...

Nothing could ever be the same.

Just as it had been with Sirius, when all of his puzzling, contradictory lies had finally begun to come to light.

Remus cursed softly to himself.

He searched his memories, trying hard to index the times Gil had lied to him. Of course there was the casually-dropped lie about the quidditch team. When Remus had eventually uncovered the truth, it had seemed a harmless exaggeration on its face, a little white ego boost to cover what must have been an embarrassing failure. His previous book, the tale of rescuing a damsel in distress from a den of vampires, clearly it was only fictionalised in the same way his own story would be. Obviously that character hadn't been the real Gil any more than their own nameless protagonist would be, and it was silly of Remus to have expected him to be. And that business with the girl from the apothecary had surely been nothing--of course he would want to contribute more to their work, particularly stranded out on the dales as they had been, with nothing for him to do all day. He'd never given any indication of having a genuine interest in women. If he'd said or done anything to give the girl the wrong impression, it was surely only more of his attention-hungry flirting. It was as meaningless as the charming grins he gave the old grannies.

Wasn't it?

For a time, Remus wracked his brain, certain there were other examples of casual half-truths and outright lies he had wilfully ignored, but unable to recall them now.

His jaw dropped then, and he stopped stock-still in the middle of a step--a fellow walking behind him had to check his own gait to avoid ploughing into him, and muttered a derisive oath under his breath in French.

Remus ignored him. He slipped a hand into his pocket and retrieved the puzzling marble-like artefact the Dumbledores had sent him, staring with unblinking eyes at the angry red glow at its centre.

The brothers had sent him a clue, a tool to help him find his way through this--but how had they known what was being done to him? How could they have guessed that a remembrall would help him?

"Fawkes?" he tried softly, under his breath, on the off chance that the bird's mysterious tracking ability might be attributed to an unknown blood-link. "I would very much appreciate some assistance, if you are able give it."

He waited for a long moment.

Nothing happened.

As he turned back to retrace his steps towards the part of the city he knew well, he was left with more questions than he had taken out with him, and a cold, sinking certainty in his chest--the certainty that, once again, he had fallen for a villain.

When Remus returned to the flat some hours later, he found Gil working in the library room, dressed aside from an overrobe, as if he'd planned to go out for a late luncheon when he was finished with his final revisions to this chapter.

He stopped in the doorway and leaned against the jamb with his arms folded across his chest, watching his friend work for a time. After a moment, he cleared his throat softly.

Gil glanced up, startled or pretending to be, and then he carefully laid aside his quill and unhooked his wire-rims from his ears. "Ah, you're back," he said, cool. "And are you feeling more yourself now? You know you're always in a foul mood before the full moon."

Remus pursed his lips and stepped into the room. "That was not the problem," he said, firm. "We must discuss this, Gil."

Gil raised his eyebrows, regarded Remus with an air of benevolent tolerance.

He stepped closer and pulled out his own chair from the large writing desk, seating himself in it, stiff. "I'm going to ask you a number of questions now," he said, "and you're going to tell me the truth."

Gil nodded. "Alright, I'll play along, if you're still set on this."

Remus slipped a hand into the breast of his overrobe and drew out a small, clear phial, a colourless liquid within. He set it on the baize of the desk between them.

Gil's eyes widened. "Is that what I think it is?"

Remus nodded. "If you have used a love potion on me, then you have committed a serious breach of the trust that must exist between us for this--" He gestured to and fro between their chests with a jerky hand. "-- _situation_ to continue. I must know the truth."

"You don't trust me?" He sounded genuinely hurt. "You'd leave me over a--a bit of rubbish? After last night?"

"After what happened this morning, I _cannot_ trust you until you prove to me that you are worthy of my trust."

"I'm not taking that! I've told you the truth! If you don't believe me now I don't know what to say!"

"Gil," Remus said, but his friend kept speaking.

"And what, I'll have to prove I'm not lying any time you ask me to from now on, is that it? You'll just force me to take a potion any time you don't like what I have to say?"

"Is that what you did to me?" Remus asked, cold.

"No!" Gil yelped, sounding wounded to his core.

"Then prove it."

"I shouldn't have to do! You're completely deranged--honestly, I think there's something wrong with you!"

Remus narrowed his eyes and waited for a long moment to see if Gil would choke under his gaze, and then, impulsive, he snatched the potion in his wand hand, yanked out the stopper, and drank half the contents down himself.

"I've about a minute and a half before this reacts with the venom in my saliva and makes me sick all over the floor, so you're going to hold that silver tongue of yours and listen to what I have to say, while I have the capacity to say it," he snapped, curt. "I believed that we were compatible, that what we had was genuine. I would have happily spent my life with you. And now I don't know whether any of it was ever real."

"Remus, I--" 

Remus kept speaking over him, "I have been used monstrously in my life, in the worst ways you can imagine, and I will _not_ tolerate it from a lover-- _not_ again."

Gil shut up and watched him, wide-eyed, sorry, or sorry he'd been caught.

"If you cannot, or will not, satisfy me on this point, then I will never be able to set it aside. I will never be able to love you, and I will never be able to _pretend_ that I do. Consider it my final price." He pursed his lips. "Now I'll leave you to think on that," he concluded, pushing himself to unsteady feet as the potion took effect, "because I have to go and get this out of my system before it poisons me."

When he emerged from the white-tiled bath an hour or so later, still fully-clothed and with freshly-cleaned teeth, but looking somewhat wan and rumpled after his reaction to the serum, Remus found Gil working still in Alphard's library, as if nothing had happened.

"Gil," he said, voice rough. "We must discuss this." He moved forward, again holding the small, clear phial in his hand, so that his friend could see it.

With a long-suffering sigh, Gil again removed his specs and set down his quill. "I'm not taking veritaserum," he said, cold. "I've told you the truth. If it would be wrong of me to make you take a potion to get what I want out of you, then it's wrong for you to do it to me."

Remus pursed his lips--it wasn't a bad argument, on its face. But after a moment he shook his head no. "I'm asking you to do this voluntarily, to help me to feel safe with you. I'm not doing it _to you_."

Gil, seeming exasperated now, turned to stare out the tall windows that opened onto the rooftop terrace. "I've told you I didn't do anything to you," he said. "Remus, this is unhealthy. It's no different to--to if you insisted on going through all my correspondence because you suspected me of being unfaithful!"

"And what if I'd found a love letter in the bin?" Remus retorted, cool.

Gil narrowed his eyes. "Merrlin, but this was so much simpler before," he said, and Remus was utterly certain what he meant. He pursed his lips and held the other man's gaze.

After a moment, Remus seated himself across from his friend again. He sighed, and leaned forward with his elbows on the baize, and pressed long fingers to his eyes. "The worst thing about this," he said, "is that if you had asked me to, I would have taken the love potion."

Gil turned back to him, startled. "What?"

"There is something wrong with me," Remus admitted, stiff and formal. "Despite... whatever I may feel... I cannot _love_ well enough. I am sorry for that. But I have given you everything I have to give, and I would have done whatever was necessary to give you what you felt you needed--if you had asked." He sighed then, defeated. "Merlin's sake, Gil, that's what it's _for_. It was designed to allow... people like me... to _choose_ to feel something they can never feel under ordinary circumstances. It was never meant to coerce others."

Gil was staring at him now, wide-eyed--horrified or amazed or hopeful, Remus couldn't be sure. It didn't matter. It wouldn't matter in a few minutes.

"Will you take the veritaserum?" he asked, one last time.

Gil bit his own lower lip, perhaps an unconscious imitation of Remus' nervous habit. "I don't want to," he said in a small, almost-childish voice. "Can't we just forget it?"

"I had thought you might say that," Remus said, drawing his wand.

That evening, with a serene smile, Remus took the big tea tray in to Alphard's library, levitating it in front of himself.

"Ah!" Gil exclaimed, delighted. "Thank you, love."

Remus' smile brightened. He let the tray come to rest on the baize of the desk and began to pour, first for Gil and then for himself.

His friend took it with cream and sugar. Remus had always preferred it sweet, but black.

He seated himself in his own chair, across the desk from Gil, and sipped quietly at his tea while he watched his friend work.

A short time later, when both cups were empty, Gil set his quill down with slow, deliberate motions, and looked up to meet Remus' gaze, glassy-eyed and slack-mouthed and seeming submissive in some undefinable way. A small frown creased his brow.

Remus cleared his throat. "Are you finished with your tea, my dear?"

"Ay," Gil grunted, distant and dull.

"Are you going to answer my questions now?"

"Ay, sure."

"Have you ever used a love potion on me, Gil?"

"I have," he said.

Remus nodded, grim. "Have you ever taken advantage of me while I was under the influence of a love potion?"

"I have," he said again, his delivery dry and bland.

"Did you use it every time we were together?"

"No."

Remus pursed his lips and nodded. "I see. Did you use it the first time we were together?"

"No," he said again.

Remus digested this information for a moment. "When did it begin?"

"In Bucharest," he said, "After you told me you were a werewolf. A little while after the first time you came home actually wanting me."

"Why did you do it?"

"I didn't want to lose you," he said. "I saw what it was like when you wanted it--I wanted things to be that way, always. I wanted you to want me, so that you'd stay."

"And have you ever altered my memory?"

"I have," Gil admitted, made shameless by his altered state.

"What exactly have you made me forget?" Remus asked.

"Only little things. Times when we argued, or when you saw me do something embarrassing." He frowned. "I didn't do it often."

"Did you ever alter my memory after I asked you not to?"

He frowned, confused. "I don't remember for certain when you asked. Maybe. I think so."

"I see," Remus said. He considered briefly before asking, "Gil, have you ever altered your own memories?"

"No," he said. "But you have."

Remus raised an eyebrow. "You mean earlier this evening?"

Gil shook his head no, slowly.

"When?" Remus asked.

"I don't know," Gil admitted. "I don't remember."

"Did you... did you _ask_ me to alter your memories?"

Gil nodded.

Feeling cold in his gut, Remus watched him for a long moment, to see if he had anything else to add. Finally, he nodded. "Thank you," he said, once more drawing his wand.

That evening, with a serene smile, Remus took the big tea tray in to Alphard's library, levitating it in front of himself.

"Ah!" Gil exclaimed, delighted. "Thank you, love."

Remus' smile brightened. He let the tray come to rest on the baize of the desk and began to pour, first for Gil and then for himself.

His friend took it with cream and sugar. Remus had always preferred it sweet, but black.

He seated himself in his own chair, across the desk from Gil, and sipped quietly at his tea while he watched his friend work.

After a time, Gil finished his paragraph and set his teacup aside, and smiled at Remus.

"I know what you're going to say," Remus told him with a smug smirk.

"Oh? And what's that?"

He covered his eyes with one hand for moment, took a deep breath, and said, "You were about to say you can hardly wait to leave for Normandy."

Gil smiled radiantly at him. "Ah sure, the Sight's real enough after all!" he joked with a smirk of his own. "And are you coming with me, darling?"

"Even though the book will be finished by then?" he asked, one brow raised.

Gil shrugged. "I want you with me." He looked embarrassed for a bare second, but he reached forward to clasp Remus' hand then, suddenly sombre. "I want to ask you something."

"Go on."

"It's been nearly a year now, hasn't it?"

Remus nodded, cool.

"It's been good, hasn't it? We've been happy."

"That isn't the real question, is it?"

Gil looked away, embarrassed, and laughed at himself. 

"The answer is yes," Remus said, cool.

Gil blinked at him, surprised. "You really do know what I'm asking," he said, awed.

He cleared his throat. "Provided," he said, firm, "that we can both commit to trusting one another fully, and to being honest with one another. About everything. Always."

Gil sucked in a breath and watched him with wide eyes.

"Promise me," Remus said, his voice soft.

"I want you to stay with me," Gil insisted, his voice soft. His hand felt warm where it clasped Remus'.

"Promise me," he repeated. "From now on, we will always be honest with one another, whatever happens."

"Alright," he said finally. "I promise. I want you to be _mine_ ," he repeated, softly insistent.

Remus met his eyes and stared at him for a long moment before he nodded. "I already am," he said.

Gil smiled radiantly at him before he put a hand to his forehead, dramatic. "Ah, what am I thinking, I ought take you out! Go on and put on that suit of robes Alphard left, we'll go out for a drink!"

Things proceeded very much as Remus had expected that night, though not as he had hoped. Again, they went out to the opulent club Gil had joined during their first stay in Paris, again they indulged in too much crisp white wine, again they stumbled drunk into the library room and again he felt the headspinning influence of the potion he had allowed his friend to secretly slip into his drink begin to take effect as they fell dizzy into bed. Again he pressed the point that he would only take what Gil would willingly give, and when Gil again insisted that he wanted it, Remus took him at his word, in case he had misunderstood his friend's reaction last time or in case the trust he had tried to forge into their vow might change things this time around. Again he applied himself valiantly to their lovemaking with his heart in his throat, until he began to feel that, again, his friend was too tense for it, his eyes squeezed shut and his prick shrivelled soft against his ballocks and his muscles unyielding. 

Finally, still gently, he pulled away, trying to stop his frustrated exhalation from becoming an audible sigh.

After a moment, he heaved himself to a sitting position and kicked his legs out of the bed, turning his back to the other man.

"Wait, I'm sorry--! We can--!"

"You don't need to apologise," Remus told him. "I only stopped because you're not enjoying yourself."

"I'm sorry," Gil said again, anxiety in his voice. "I want to, it's only..."

Remus looked back over his shoulder to meet his friend's eyes, and then he reached a hand back to clasp his, where it lay outstretched on the mattress.

"It's alright," Remus told him. "If you want to do it, you'll become accustomed to it soon enough."

Gil regarded him for a moment with wide eyes--Remus had the impression he was trying to make himself say something he didn't want to admit.

"What is it?"

"And--what if I didn't want to?" he finally said in a small voice.

Remus squeezed his hand in what he hoped was a comforting way. "That would not be a problem for me," he said, carefully, "if you were to be honest with me about it."

Gil watched him, thoughtful, with his brows drawn up in the middle. "I want to," he eventually said, seeming decisive. "Only... maybe not yet?"

Remus sighed. He nodded his understanding before he turned to lean down and press a kiss to the boy's forehead. "If that's what you want," he said.

Gil nodded at him, still seeming anxious.

Remus released his hand with a gentle pat. "I'm going to have a shower," he lied. He reached up to pet Gil's hair, to tangle his fingers fondly through his curls. "Go to sleep now."

_Gil,_ he wrote some hours later, _I'm leaving you. I've thought about this for some time and I'm certain this is what I want. Please don't try to find me or contact me._

He considered leaving it at that for some minutes, staring down balefully at the words he had penned. A brief urge struck him to burn the letter with a gout of blue flame and forget the whole thing and take himself in to bed and to his friend's arms, but then he steeled his courage and continued writing.

_I don't appreciate the way you've treated me. I don't appreciate that you've been dishonest with me, and it frightens me that you've been dishonest with yourself. I don't believe this could ever work under these circumstances._

Remus sighed at the truth of what he had written, certain now that he wouldn't take it back.

 _I am sorry,_ he wrote then. _I will always remember you fondly, but this is not what I want. I hope that you can come to accept yourself as you are one day._

He signed the letter with a shaking hand and stood, took up the folio and the papers he had gathered and bundled them into his overrobe, and bent to grip the handle of his new suitcase. And then, quickly, so that he couldn't second-guess himself or feel the weight of loss settling on him, he strode from the library room, down the stairs and across to the raised foyer, and out the door of Alphard's flat for the last time.


	7. The Chase

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end of the line.

Remus blinked, confused. He was staring down at his hands, spread upon a tabletop he didn't recognise. They must have been his hands, of course, for the shape was familiar and the scars were in the right places and the fingers twitched to his will when he tested them--but the skin looked rougher than it should, the veins stood out more starkly than he remembered. His nails were dirty and cracked, to his great dismay. A few new scars crossed the old, like new borders on an old map.

Gradually, he came to understand that he didn't know where he was. His mind was foggy. He felt stoned. He realised he was very hungry, enough to feel weakened by it.

He looked up from the tabletop to find himself seated at an outdoor table in front of a café in a charming town street, a place which by the character of the buildings and the high forested ridges surrounding them Remus guessed to be on the continent, in eastern or central Europe. It seemed almost like one of the places where he and his family had briefly stayed during their long itinerancy in search of an impossible cure. Perhaps it was; his memories of those days had always been poor, and he had never known the names of many of the places where they had stayed. The words printed upon the signage were unmistakably from a Latinate language, and Remus found he could read them quite as well as if they had been English or French, though he wasn't certain which language it actually _was_ , and he had no memory of learning it.

He glanced to his right and found that he was not alone. Next to him, watching him with interest and concern, sat--his old headmaster? How long had it been since he had seen the man? And what was he doing here--what was _Remus_ doing here?

"Is that better?" The old man asked him, slipping his weird, bony wand back into the sleeve of his uncharacteristically sombre navy overrobe.

Remus didn't reply at first. He tried to keep his face neutral, to give nothing away. "I'm not certain," he said eventually, carefully. The harshness of his own voice surprised him. It sounded very deep and rough to him, the voice of an older man than he. He cleared his throat.

"What's the last thing you remember?" Dumbledore asked him calmly, cheerfully.

Remus sagged slightly with relief. Whatever was happening, apparently he was meant to be confused, disoriented. He trusted Dumbledore, he felt safe with him--and he was somehow sure that he hadn't felt safe in quite some time. He thought hard, trying to make sense of jumbled memories. He found it was difficult to put the things he remembered into chronological order in his own mind.

He knew who he was--more importantly _what_ he was. He knew Dumbledore, he remembered his early childhood and his school years well enough, he knew that he had left school some years ago. He remembered living at his mother's old shop, working with James and Lily and Moody. He remembered disordered flashes of the war, of his training, of his slinking spycraft.

He remembered Sirius. He remembered losing Sirius, over and over again.

He knew there had been a wedding, and a birth, and he knew that little family was no more.

He remembered hunting his own partner, his own lover, in the days after Voldemort's fall. He knew of the betrayal they had uncovered, of Sirius' shocking faithlessness and his turning finally, fully to the dark--for his _new_ companion.

He remembered well his visceral disgust upon learning that Sirius had been sleeping with them both for a year or more.

He remembered the scene on the street when they finally caught up with him.

He could remember calmly walking out on the Order some days later, washing his hands of the war and everything it had done to him, everything it had taken from him. He knew that most of his friends were dead or driven mad or worse, that he had been left with no support or aid in a world set against him. They had won, but at such a cost that Remus was left adrift, alone, and soon enough homeless.

But here, things blurred and his too-compartmentalised mind failed him. He knew with grim certainty that he had left England not many years thereafter, fleeing fear and following hope, but he couldn't remember doing it, couldn't remember making the decision or why he had done so. He remembered a silver-haired girl.

He knew he had taken up his father's profession for some time, ill-advised as it was, rambling through wizarding communities selling his skills to those who had reason to lay prices on the heads of magical creatures, generally small and stupid ones. He knew he had hated the work, had hated himself for doing it. He knew he had been bloody good at it, and that it hadn't paid well.

He believed he must have wound up in Paris again, for a time at least. He remembered the bitter taste of the potion and the depressive high of muggle sedatives, an address, a woman with two names. He remembered fleeing though dark city streets from uniformed authorities.

He remembered sleeping rough in urban graveyards, squatting in that garish and tatty old flat Sirius had never called a home, eating food discarded at tables, at cafés such as this. He remembered making rough trade of himself, chasing a lasting connection with some perverse toff or another who was well enough off to offer a werewolf some comfort in exchange for the only thing he could give. It hadn't worked often or well, not with the blush and the charm of his youth prematurely behind him and his heart so far from in it.

After some time, he shook his head, uncertain and ashamed. "I don't know. Paris, I think. In the winter..."

"And the year?"

Remus hesitated, frightened. "1985, perhaps...?"

Dumbledore nodded, solemn. "I see. I thought that might be the case."

Remus finally gave up his pretence of control, of independence. "Please tell me, Professor--what's happened?" he asked in a voice which startled even him with its smallness.

"Remus," the old man said then, "I think the time has come for you to call me Albus, hasn't it?" He smiled gently over his specs.

He nodded and tested the name, "Albus." He didn't remember ever having been granted it before. "Tell me what's happened," he repeated then.

A bell chimed--the door of the café opened and the proprietor came out with a large tray. For the first time, Remus realised that the area was eerily empty, that there were no patrons at the café tables or passersby on the street, though it seemed to be early evening in summer.

"We'll deal with all that in a moment," the old man told Remus, patting his arm reassuringly where it lay on the table, a simple comfort that felt overwhelming after his exile, his isolation. "Ah, lovely! Thank you, Giorgios," Albus chirped pleasantly as the proprietor set down plates heaping with flat bread and houmous and croquettes of falafel, rice and spiced meat, tall glasses of lemon squash and a full coffee service, candied fruits and honeyed pastries. The olive-complected fellow smiled cunningly and winked at Albus, and said something to him in a language Remus didn't know, one that didn't match up to the signs in the street.

Remus tucked in messily without waiting for an invitation. Wounded pride hurt less than an empty stomach.

Albus sat with him in companionable silence, quietly sipping his lemon squash and looking about himself, enjoying the scenery of the street and occasionally popping a sugar plum or a bit of crystallised pineapple into his mouth, while Remus wolfed as much food as he could bear to swallow.

It occurred to him halfway through the meal that he had been eating the meat on offer with no hesitation, and he felt disgusted with himself, distantly, like the ache of an old wound. 

But it didn't make him queasy, and so he didn't stop.

Finally, when he had finished and Giorgios had returned to clear the empty plates, Albus drew out a packet of Gauloises and offered him one. Remus accepted, feeling somehow that he knew and liked the pricey foreign brand, though he wasn't sure why. He slipped his hand into his pocket for his wand without thinking, and as he felt the smooth wooden knot of the familiar handle against his fingertips he was struck with relief that he hadn't somehow lost it during the time he had mislaid--a quick fumble in the dark told him Sirius' pretty little blade was still pressed against his thigh as well, though he wasn't sure if that discovery could be called a relief. He pushed away the thought and drew his wand to hold it up in offer then, and he and Albus lit their cigarettes together off the tip.

"Thank you, my dear boy," Albus said softly, meeting his eyes with an expression which was as regretful as it was enchanted.

Remus opened his mouth and closed it again without saying anything, struck by a sudden certainty about the old man that had never occurred to him before--or, if it had, he no longer remembered it. 

Albus smiled gently again and winked at him.

"I think you and I have a great deal to discuss, Remus," the old man said, pouring coffee for them both. "We are quite safe here for the time being, and nothing we say will be overheard by anyone who cannot be trusted--young Giorgios already knows the worst of my secrets, I'm afraid," he added conspiratorially.

The turn of phrase quite irritated Remus. "I don't know what you're talking about," he lied.

"Don't insult me," Albus said, coolly casual. "I know very well what you are."

Remus sighed fine white smoke. "Do you want me to say it?"

"Bitterness doesn't suit you," Albus said. "And yes, I do. The matter is relevant to the situation in which you find yourself, as it happens. How can we discuss it otherwise?"

After a moment, Remus said, "I do _prefer_ women," very quietly. "Up to a point, anyhow. But you're right."

Albus waited, but Remus said nothing else. The old man nodded, tapped ash onto the cobbles. "Remus," he said then, "I've never told you about the boy I loved when I was young."

Remus nodded, eyes on the table again. "No," he agreed unnecessarily.

"It's difficult to talk about, of course. Not only for the obvious reasons." He took a drag and idly made rings of the smoke. "Ask me what his name was."

"What was his name," Remus said, bland. He felt numb.

There was a pause, and for the first time in his life--the first time that he remembered, anyhow--Remus thought the old headmaster didn't look quite in control of himself. Finally, Albus took a deep breath, released it in a long sigh, and spoke one of the few names more infamous than his own: "Gellert Grindlewald."

Remus' eyes flew up to meet the other man's and gooseflesh chased itself down his limbs in waves. " _What?_ "

"I'll tell you more about him sometime, if you like. But we have a lot in common, I believe, you and I," Albus murmured. "Don't we?"

Remus knew what he meant. "How did you find out?" he asked, heart pounding.

"I have my ways--do let me keep some things to myself."

Remus nodded. Moody must have guessed, in the aftermath of that Halloween when all of Sirius' terrible secrets had come out, if not before.

"I wish I had known, back then." Albus laid a hand on Remus' forearm again. "Things might have turned out very differently if I had understood how difficult it would be for the two of you to be forced to keep secrets from one another."

"It wouldn't have stopped him turning," Remus said, though even now he wasn't sure. A part of him wanted to believe that if they hadn't been put through the wringer like that, if he hadn't been forced to leave Sirius, to deceive him, then perhaps things might not have gone so sideways. Sirius must have believed, after all, that it was Remus who was turning to the dark first, who threw his lot in in with their enemies' before Sirius even considered it. It mightn't have been so attractive a prospect to Sirius if Remus hadn't already framed himself for the same crime. "We couldn't have changed anything," he concluded, as if to convince himself.

For a moment, it seemed Albus was weighing something behind his blue eyes, coming to a carefully-calculated decision. But in the end all he said was, "I understand what you've been going through, Remus. I truly do."

Impulsively honest, Remus said, "You might be the only person in the world who can say such a thing to me."

"I was hoping you would see it that way." Albus removed his half-moon specs, folded them carefully, and tucked them into the breast of his overrobe. He leaned forward and regarded Remus levelly. "Remus, my dear boy," he said then, rummaging in another pocket with one hand, "You asked me what happened, during the time that you've lost."

He nodded.

The old man sighed. "This has been very a difficult mission for you, I'm afraid..."

Remus felt cold. With his hands once more braced flat on the table to steady himself, he asked, "What do you mean, _mission_?"

_Two Years Earlier_

Remus lay submerged to his neck in hot water in a blue-tiled bathhouse in a wizarding district of the small Romanian city of Bistrița in the spring of 1989, with his eyes shut and his head leaned back against the rim of the large bathing pool, contemplating the past and the future and wondering what to do this bloody goddamned time, when he heard a familiar broguey tenor, drawling with amusement.

"Looking for company?"

Remus opened his eyes and lifted his head, weary. "How did you find me?" he asked.

"When you run, you ought go someplace you've never been before," Gil said into the echoing chamber, not trying to minimise his accent at all, perhaps for the first time in the year or so they had known one another, to judge by its sudden weight. "If and you don't want to be found, that is." He chuckled softly to himself and moved closer, divesting himself of the soft bathing robe provided. "You said you never wanted to go back to Bucharest," he explained. "But whatever it was you were looking for in Romania--you found _me_. So I figured you'd come back here and finish your work, and this was the only other city in the area you'd mentioned. As to this place, well--" He waved a hand to indicate their surroundings as he slid into the bathing pool across from Remus. "I _thought_ you might get up to your old tricks again. Only so many places to look for someone like you." He grinned slyly then, and fondled himself under the water. "So, what d'yeh say--once more for old times' sake?"

"I'm here for a bath," Remus said, cool. "You know that I don't want to see you anymore."

"Yeah, the dear John letter and the stolen manuscript rather let me in on that one, thanks."

"I didn't steal anything. It was my story."

" _Half_ yours!"

"It was mine. You changed it."

"I did the work!"

"I'm not comfortable with you publishing your edited version of my life," Remus hissed, keeping his voice low, "made into a sordid drama for the entertainment of anyone with a handful of galleons. That isn't what I set out to do. I wanted to record the experiences of--" He sighed and rolled his eyes. "--my kind." He hesitated then, shaking his head. "I wanted people to understand werewolves better. You've written a--a swashbuckling bodice-ripper."

"That's what sells," Gill asserted.

"I've told you I'm not interested in _selling_."

"Quite changed yer tune, eh?"

"Will you _stop_ that, please?" Remus drew himself up and stood to slip placidly out of the hot pool then, and crossed to the place where folded towels awaited on a low bench. Gil sighed and followed him, tugging his bathing robe on again over his wet skin with indignant motions--selkie-like, Remus thought, not for the first time.

"God, do you not see you've fucked me over, Remus! Sure it was your story to begin with, but I'm the one who wrote it out and put it in order and fixed your mistakes and gave it a structure and made it _mean_ something! And what d'yeh think we've been livin' on for a year? That was my advance--that was my payment for the book you stole!"

Remus summoned his clothes from the nearby changing room with an exasperated sigh. "I can't steal my own-- It never _was_ a book. I should never have agreed to it." He caught the bundle of his robes neatly in one hand and began hastily to dress.

"Ah, you were gagging for it," Gil accused hotly. "Should'a seen the gears turnin' in your head when I said I was a writer."

"I thought you meant you were a spoiled toff with pretensions towards artistry, not an _actual published author_ with a deadline out for _my_ work. Merlin's sake, I thought it was an excuse to keep me around. I was flattered!"

"Well you shouldn't have been!" Gil snarked. "There's a dozen like you on any centre-street in Europe, and a lot of them are a damned sight better-looking."

"Oh, fuck off," Remus huffed through his allegedly-dashing scars, half a laugh. Dressed now, he spun in place, touching down on the slick marble floor of the nearby train station a moment later.

He stepped quickly though the crowd to the left luggage office and with terse words and a quick nod of thanks retrieved his suitcase from the clerk. He made it past the ticket counter and was halfway down a random platform when he felt and heard the snap of Gil's apparation--he whirled and scanned the crowd behind him, spotting his old friend in a moment, his bright golden curls and sapphire robes making him once more a parrot amongst owls.

"Remus!" he shouted over the crowd when he saw the werewolf had turned. "Stop that man, he's a thief!"

Remus blanched, shocked, but the words went unheeded aside from curious looks--anyone among the crowd who could understand English must have figured it wasn't their business.

Ignoring the eyes on him, Remus spun in place, popping to the next platform over, and then he did it again, to confuse his pursuer. Once more, and he touched down in a flurry of robe and cloak and mussed hair, within a compartment of the train that had been beside him, just as it began to lurch from its moorings.

He ducked low so that he couldn't be seen through the window, clutching the handle of his suitcase tightly and sucking in deep breaths to steady himself.

The train pulled to the west once it was out of the station, moving towards the border, likely destined ultimately for Hungary. Remus could feel no nearby resonance of casting from the other man, and thought it likely he had left him behind--but for him this was as untenable a position as it had been a year ago. He would have to disembark at another local station, as they had then, or face the wizarding authorities at the Hungarian border.

After a time, with no indication he had been followed, he felt easier in his empty compartment. He dodged the ticket-taker when it was necessary and went without supper rather than risk showing himself in the dining car. He hadn't much gold on him anyway, and he might need it later.

It was silver evening when he stepped off the train onto a snowy outdoor platform in some unknown mountain town. Worried that Gil might have managed to trace the train or to ascertain its destination and might be lurking nearby, and unwilling to risk the possibility of his former friend sensing the reverberation of their still-resonant magic, Remus determined to take himself away from this place again by mundane means, and as quickly as possible.

The fastest way to a place where he could disappear without using magic or encountering Aurors at a border, though, was to take the same line back through Bistrița and from there to make his way south and east to Bucharest after all--and perhaps he might even take Gil's advice to flee to locales unknown, might take himself across the ominously-named Black Sea from there, to Turkey or Armenia or the lands beyond. He had never crossed that particular frontier before, but surely in Bucharest or the port cities nearby there was some market for the covert transportation of dark creatures, and some call for the skills he could sell. Once he was certain he had shaken his pursuer, he could formulate a new plan: find a place for himself hunting pests or breaking curses in some distant desert city, or again make himself available to an alliance with some other tragically-bent and perpetually-expatriated wizard-adventurer. Perhaps both, if things went well. 

In a thoroughly desperate case, he could use the nasturtium portkey he had kept tucked into his suitcase next to the remembrall to return himself to the Dumbledores' purview again, for what that was worth. But if he used the portkey now, with the chance that his old friend was close, Gil might feel it by their resonance, and might come looking for him in Yorkshire as soon as he could arrange legal travel--which wouldn't take long, considering the other man had the advantage of paperwork that proved him an ordinary wizard. Of course Remus might rely on the Dumbledores for protection once there, but the cost of it was always worth considering, with those two.

But whatever move he chose next, he would first have to make his way back through Romania without his old friend catching up to him again, to a place where he could safely use magic again--and as clever and as ruthless as Gil had proved to be, Remus ought to take what precautions he could.

He waited until the train pulled away again and looked to and fro to be sure he wouldn't be observed--or smashed by the oncoming train from the opposite direction--before he hopped down to cross the pair of tracks to the other platform.

He set his suitcase upon the platform before he hauled his long legs up and gathered them under himself, and when the opposing train slid into its berth some too-short moments later, Remus slipped silently aboard and found himself an empty compartment again.

Once the train was underway, he dodged the ticket-taker again by slipping silently from compartment to compartment behind the fellow as he dealt with a baffled young tourist, and when all was quiet outside the flimsy sliding door again, he relaxed and began to settle in for the ride, feigning sleep with his cloak pulled up to obscure his face and his eyes half-open beneath his lashes. 

As the night deepened and the train rocked, he gradually fell into genuine sleep.

When the train pulled into the station at Bistrița again some time later, Remus woke, though he stayed silent, still feigning sleep, and waited. He was tense and alert beneath the facade of his cloak, half-expecting Gil to appear, but in the end the train pulled away again, continuing on its way south and east.

Merlin, how had he got himself into this mess?

He'd gone to Selene first, of course.

He'd gone to her the morning before, in fact, to beg the phial of veritaserum that had finally--with not even a whimper but a disappointed sigh--ended their affair. She'd been concerned, suspicious, but accommodating as she always was. He'd left her shaken and drawn, pale with the dread of what he was about to do.

When he'd gone back to her in the middle of the night, suitcase in hand and clearly distraught, she'd welcomed him with a sweet embrace and a few warm but meaningless platitudes, distant-eyed and half-attentive, as she always was.

He had planned to stay with her until the next full moon, at first, though it was still some weeks away. He'd had nowhere else to go at the time, save back to the Dumbledores, and he'd needed a safe haven, a waystation from which to plan his next move.

And of course, he would need the potion again soon.

"I can't afford it any more," he'd admitted to her, eyes averted, and she had nodded vaguely and called him by the wrong name and poured him a draught of brandy with a weak tincture of poppy dropped in for good measure. He had crawled fully-clothed into her big bed and slept too-heavily while she sat up dead-eyed to watch a pot boil.

But of course, he couldn't have stayed with her for so long, really. The temptation to do something stupid was too great, whichever way one sliced it: an attractive and competent woman who wanted him, a warm and secure home, ready-made, with a single large bed, and soon enough it was time for her to begin the brewing cycle for the month, purple potions bubbling away at all hours, calling sweetly to him and whispering of the numbing relief they could provide--altogether too much for a wolf-tainted man with a now twice-broken heart and a monkey trying hard to climb back onto his crooked back.

He'd left her cramped and forestlike room ten days before the full moon, taking a single dose for the road from the first finished batch and fleeing in the night like a criminal without even a farewell. He didn't know then that he would never see _her_ again, either, that his time in Paris was a chapter now closed forever.

He had followed the express line back to the east again then, dodging Aurors and border-minders here and there, and along the way he'd passed a chilly fur-cloaked night in an orchard somewhere in the Austrian countryside. In the morning, he had stolen a few apples, feeling paradoxically refreshed by the cool, misty morning as he set off on weary feet towards the tracks again. He had felt cautiously optimistic that morning despite his lack of an ally or a plan or a destination, hopeful that he was leaving behind a series of mistakes, and that he might be moving towards a better future--and perhaps even towards a better friend, one day.

It was like waking from a dream.

Eventually, unthinking and exhausted and entertaining a bittersweet haunting of his first, doomed love inside his eyelids, he fell into sleep again.

He was woken by a gentle nudge on the shoulder, glanced up to find a strange man in a dark uniform, leaning down over him--he jerked upright, alarmed.

"Ticket?" the fellow asked, holding up one hand in apologetic appeasement.

"Of course," Remus murmured in English before clearing his throat and correcting himself with, "Bineînţeles." He slipped a hand into his trouser pocket. "How much to Bucharest?" he asked in the stranger's tongue.

The fellow glanced down to consult his timetable--

\--and Remus whipped his wand from his pocket in a quick, upward stroke, casting half on instinct with a bright flash. The man reeled back, shocked, into the flimsy sliding door, and after a moment of blank alarm, he shook his head as if to clear it.

"Wh--who are you?" he asked then. "What's going on?"

"All is well," Remus told him in a gruff voice. "There is no one in this compartment."

The man straightened and turned away without a word or another look, struggling for a moment with the latch before he slid the door aside and stepped out.

Remus pressed at his eyes to clear the sleep, and cursed softly to himself in English.

Now the kneazle might be out of the bag, he thought, rubbing idly at the medial surface of his left forearm in a likely-futile attempt to deaden the vibration. He could only hope that his old friend hadn't been near enough to feel the resonance of his casting, that he'd pursued Remus to the west without realising the werewolf had doubled back, or that he'd stayed in Bistrița or gone on to Bucharest by magical means, thinking to head Remus off there.

But of course his luck was too damnably awful for that, wasn't it? The other Remus, reflected ghostly in the dark window of the train compartment, gave him a wry look then, and nodded.

He cursed softly to himself again. His pursuer was on the train.

Gil must have been unable to trace which train he'd taken before, must have wasted his evening in Bistrița, searching fruitlessly or dining too-well, before boarding the same southbound line to Bucharest--the very same train Remus had hopped.

Moving quickly, he drew his lovely new suitcase down from the rack above his head. He set it upon the seat next to himself and opened it, removing from within a bundle of papers, which he tucked back into the breast of his robe next to his small field journal, and his old suitcase, smaller and slimmer, which had fit neatly within. He tucked this smaller case behind his legs, his overrobe draped casually over it to hide it from view. The new case, he closed again, and stretched to return it to its conspicuous place in the rack before he dropped himself into a hunch in the corner again, with his cloak drawn up over his face, to once again feign sleep.

Stiff and silent, with pounding heart, he waited in the dark to see if his old friend would take the bait.

Some time passed, perhaps half an hour, before the slim sliding door was drawn quietly aside, before a silent figure, surprisingly graceful considering its sturdy constitution, slipped into the compartment with wand drawn, looming over Remus.

The werewolf tightened his fingers on his own wand again, concealed beneath his cloak.

The figure advanced, reached up, fastened a hand around the handle of Remus' new suitcase. Remus let him do it.

A pause, to be sure he hadn't disturbed the sleeping werewolf, and then Gil was drawing the new suitcase down carefully, slipping it behind himself and backing slowly out of the compartment, and in a moment he was gone.

Remus opened his eyes and lurched to his feet, towards the door, just in time to see Gil vanish towards the front of the train--no doubt bound for an expensive private compartment where he could examine his loot. Remus had perhaps only a few minutes before the other man realised the case had been emptied.

He turned and bent to retrieve his old suitcase from where he had hidden it behind his legs, pausing as he did so to murmur a quiet, "Thanks," to his bland-faced reflection.

The other Remus nodded magnanimously and turned away as Remus turned away.

He dashed down the aisle between the compartments towards the rear of the train, wand drawn and fingers tight on the handle of his small suitcase, glancing frequently back over his shoulder.

He had to get off the train--but if he cast again with his old friend so near, Gil would know he'd been awake, and Remus would lose the slim advantage that giving up his new suitcase had bought. Best to put as much physical distance between himself and Gil as possible before he was forced to cast. He wasn't sure of the limits of their resonance, of the distance it would take to dull it--he'd never tested it.

Wide-eyed and wand drawn, he burst into the dining compartment then, startling the lone barman behind the bar and the middle-aged muggle couple who sat sipping tonics at a table for two as they watched the black mountains fly past the large window.

Cornered now, with a single avenue of escape visible, Remus lashed his wand at the barman first, stupefying him neatly.

"Now see here--" the middle-aged fellow said, standing indignantly to move between Remus and his wife--but in a moment the werewolf had redirected the force of his magic, stunning him as well.

"Pardon me," Remus told the woman, stepping forward over her husband's limp form and swinging himself up onto the bolted table in front of her. She stared, frozen and trembling, as he blasted out the large window with a hex.

An inarticulate shout from behind him startled him: a familiar broguey tenor called out, "Ey, you filthy old nonce! _Where's my book?!_ "

Remus blanched again, his hair whipping in the wind from the open window as he turned to look back over his shoulder--if his old friend planned to go about shouting things like that in public, then the gloves were off. "I suggest you keep in mind that you have far more to lose than I," he shouted over the roar of the rushing air, "if our indiscretions were ever to be revealed!"

"Oh and now it's blackmail, is it?" With a bright flash, Gil obliviated the panic-stricken woman. "You've been feeling ill, get back ta yer compartment! Now!" he snapped without looking at her, and she obeyed, ignoring her companion's body.

He trained his wand on Remus then. "Give it back!" he yelped, sounding wounded.

Remus shook his head. "Let me go," he countered, firm.

"Not without that manuscript, I won't!"

Remus pressed his lips into a determined line and tightened his grip on the handle of his suitcase, and then, still crouched on the table, he backed himself closer to the window, his wand up in a defensive stance and his eyes fixed firm on the other man.

"Don't you dare!!" Gil shouted, and then, just as Remus dropped himself backward into the rushing night, he cried, " _Accio_ manuscript!"

Sheaves of parchment flew from the breast of his robe as he fell, like blood from a wound, or like feathers from a bird shot down in flight. He clutched his wand hand over his heart to staunch the flow, but quickly realised he couldn't stop the spell unless he cast something that would counter it.

The papers continued to flit away between Remus' fingers, flowing up now in an arc, into the window of the rapidly-retreating train, its iron bulk visible on its high wooden frame now that he had fallen away from it.

With barely the space of a breath before he hit the snowbound forest floor so far below, with heart pounding and limbs flailing, and desperate to stop the flow of his life into his enemy's hands, Remus gritted his teeth and cried out in disgusted agony as he forced himself into the transfigured pelt he had vowed never to put on again.

He felt the tide of parchment stop as the spell took effect, as his robes became sleek fur around him and his hands became proper canine paws before his eyes, and in the next moment, the wind was knocked out of him as he slammed back-first into the snow, as he tumbled arse-over-teakettle down the steep slope in the dark, finally coming to rest in a heap in a clearing at the base of the rise, with loose snow cascading around him.

Winded and wounded, and almost certainly concussed, Remus slipped into unconsciousness.

When he woke, the bright light of full morning stung his now-yellow eyes. He tried to rise, but his body was wrong around him, his joints working in the wrong directions and the feel of fur over his skin giving him the screamingest of heebie-jeebies.

Remus rolled onto his front out of the snowbank and stared down, shocked, at his forepaws in the daylight. This _other_ wolf-shape felt strange around him, alien to him now from long disuse--and he'd never grown accustomed to it in the first place, really. Disoriented and dysphoric, he scrabbled his four feet under himself for a brief moment in a wild attempt to gather himself into a run. He stooped to take up the handle of the small suitcase which had landed near him in clenched jaw, realising as he did so the size and scale of himself, startling and dizzying, and then he dashed towards the cover of the treeline where he couldn't be seen from above.

He waited there for some time, huddled wolf-shaped and shivering in the lee of a fallen tree, before he was willing to risk changing his shape again, to risk broadcasting his location through the reverberation of his magic.

Though it didn't really hurt _physically_ to change this way, it made him shiver and gag when he put his human skin back on, a queasy echo of the taste of that awful potion rising in his throat, as if he'd swallowed it down hours ago rather than years ago. He vowed once more never to do that to himself again, never to think of it again if he could help it, and pushed himself to his feet in the snow, fumbling in his robes to check for his wand and for what was left of the parchments there.

He still had his little cloth-bound field journal, and a good chunk of the manuscript was left crumpled against his chest, perhaps as much as half. He was uninjured, or near enough, now that he'd lain still for a while. His head ached. He was quite hungry by now, not having eaten or drunk since the previous morning, and still low on gold. His slender, knotted wand and Sirius' pretty little knife still lay together in his pocket, safe and ready. 

The train was long gone, of course.

Depending on how long he had been out and where that train was now along its path, he might beat Gil to Bucharest if he apparated, might avoid triggering their resonance at either end of the fold. He needed food, and someplace safe to rest, and a place to begin a new journey--all available in the familiar capital city.

Decisive, he nodded to himself and opened his small suitcase. Moving quickly again, he half-undressed in the snow to change into his old corduroy trousers and the bland and dirty muggle windbreaker he wore when he wished to be even less conspicuous than usual. He tucked what was left of the manuscript against his heart again and slipped his weapons back into his trouser pocket before he bundled his cloak and robes into his luggage.

He stood then, gathered his energy and his thoughts and gripped tight the handle of his small suitcase, and spun in place.

Remus dropped himself back into space in the centre of the large market that had always bustled at the heart of Bucharest's wizarding district, panting slightly with the effort of making so long a jump exhausted and on an empty stomach. For a moment, he stood still and looked around himself, getting his bearings.

The place seemed grimmer than before to Remus' eyes--those witches and wizards who were conducting business at the depleted stalls and moving furtively between them were fewer in number than this time last year, and they spoke softly and kept their heads down. Far fewer children could be seen about. 

It put him in mind of Diagon Alley during the summer of 1982, when the so-called dark lord's power had been waxing to its full.

Unsettled, he sidled up to a stand and bought himself a small, hard loaf some old bread and a lump of pungent cheese, parting with more of his gold than he preferred, and then he took himself away from the market towards the abandoned-seeming cemetery where he knew his kind could find safe shelter, if one didn't mind the smell and the drear.

He used Sirius' little knife to let himself into the large crypt at the back of the graveyard where the two wyfwolves he had tailed the previous spring had used to stay. The lock had been keyed correctly again at some point, and the place had apparently stood sealed and empty for some time now, to judge by the accumulation of spiderwebs and the dry leaves which had blown in through the grated gatelike door.

There was no sign of the wolf-girls, no sign that any living soul had been here lately. 

Too weary to waste energy on casting, Remus used Sirius' knife to lock the grated door behind himself again and slumped himself in the near-dark at the back of the crypt to tear the toothy bread into bite-sized pieces with his fingers.

He ate slowly, to make it last, and when he was finished, he opened his suitcase again to bring out his cloak to use for a blanket, to bundle the older of his overrobes into a pillow.

He slipped two small objects out from an interior pocket of the case then: the glass phial that held the nasturtium portkey that could carry him home, to England--if he hadn't gone fully rogue at this point--and the little sphere which once again glowed hot red in his hand as soon as he touched it. He held them both in his palm, staring contemplatively at the remembrall's haunting glow and planning his next move.

The intended function of the device, if he recalled his studies correctly, was to keep track of _important_ memories, of unfinished business. Its purpose wasn't to force a person to recall every insignificant event that had ever taken place in one's life--such an artefact would be useless if not crippling.

Unless it was malfunctioning, then something _important_ had been forgotten. He had lost the memory of a task he was meant to carry out, a responsibility that had been placed upon him. But Gil had admitted--under veritaserum no less--that his only manipulation of Remus' memory had been in small and petty matters, to spare embarrassment or to win arguments.

He slipped his fingers into the front of the windbreaker to feel the edge of the bundled half-manuscript concealed there, and poked at the scar that bisected his lower lip with his tongue, considering.

He sighed wistfully at the remembrall's glow then, and closed his hand around the sphere. It reminded him of the red foxfire of Sirius' healing gift, tracing warm along his fingers in the dark.

This time, he didn't put the thought out of his head right away.

But eventually he turned himself back to the present: it was the Dumbledores who had sent the remembrall, so perhaps it was they who could shed light on the matter. It seemed he would have to return himself to the Order after all. But he wouldn't leave the rest of the manuscript in the deceptively-strong and clutching hands of his old friend.

After some time, with determination renewed, he placed the two small objects back inside his suitcase and fastened it securely, and drew his cloak up over himself to settle in for sleep.

Over the next few days, Remus wandered the city with his eyes open for any sign of Gil--who had after all been destined for Bucharest last he knew--or for any opportunity to add to the small stockpile of gold that he hoped would be enough to pay for his potion when it was necessary. He flushed a cockatrice out of an old woman's cellar in trade for a hot meal and a bottle of ale, and he was given a scant handful of coin for offering his help in unloading some crates of blank parchment behind a warehouse as he passed by, but with the obvious hardship lurking round every corner of Bucharest there wasn't much else for him here.

What he needed was an ally--he had never had one in this city, aside from the one he'd found last spring and taken away from here, and made into an enemy. He considered going back to the half-elf in his understreet apothecary to try his luck as an odd-jobber there, but he guessed that the diminutive fellow wouldn't have developed much in the way of charitable feeling towards werewolves in the past year, and Remus didn't want to pester him, in case it made it more difficult to acquire the potion when the time came.

In the afternoons, he changed into the subdued but unarguably fine robes Gil had bought him in Paris and turned a good stiff cleansing charm upon himself so that he could trek into the finer parts of the wizards' world hidden behind the corners of the old city, where whatever was happening didn't seem to deter shopping and fashion and day-drinking as much. He was met with suspicious glares rather than speculative gazes, though, and the gentlemen there made him no offers--not that he had ever had offers extended to him with any real frequency. He didn't waste gold on coffees or cigarettes these days. He saw no sign of his real quarry.

On the fourth day after his arrival in Bucharest, he dressed again in his grubby muggle atire and took himself down the cobbled backstreet behind the inn where he had used to stay, where they had used to stay together. He lurked in the area for some time, pacing up and down nearby streets and stopping here and there to lean against doorframes and drainpipes with his hair down over his face, his eyes and the nerves in his forearms alert for any sign that his old friend had returned to the same establishment where he had stayed before, as he had in Vienna. All was quiet until well past nightfall, though this didn't necessarily mean Gil wasn't nearby, given his tendency to laze about a suite in his pyjamas for days at a time, and his habit of foregoing simple magic in favour of performing small tasks the muggle way.

Finally, Remus turned away on foot, back towards the graveyard, and the large, cold crypt where he had been sleeping, to once more roll the remembrall between his fingers and to weigh his options.

Say Gil hadn't continued on the train to Bucharest after all--he might have been satisfied enough by what he had retrieved of the manuscript already, and might have felt no need to pursue Remus any farther. It was possible he could reconstruct much of the story from memory, given a long enough time and an indulgent enough patronage from his publisher, or that he had some secret stockpile of discarded drafts he could use to rebuild the missing parts. 

Remus had tried to be thorough when he'd packed up to jump ship, and besides that, he had no memory of the other man ever keeping any of his notes separate from the rest of their work. Everything had always been kept together, in whatever writing desk happened to grace their current residence, or in Gil's hand valise when they travelled, for his old friend had been quite rigid in many of his habits. But despite that, some strangely-persistent part of Remus insisted it was something Gil would do.

If his friend-turned-enemy had given up the chase and returned to Alphard's flat in Paris or to some cheap accommodation in England to reconstruct the story there, or if he had gone ahead with his plan for a getaway in Normandy, then Remus would have to make his way back across the continent again if he wanted to retrieve the rest of the manuscript--obviously a much more daunting prospect for a destitute dark creature with no travel permits than for a respectable and law-abiding wizard who still seemed to be solvent enough though he'd claimed to be running low on gold.

But if Gil _had_ come to Bucharest, it could be for no other reason than to retrieve the half of the manuscript which Remus carried. _He_ would be searching for Remus.

He was going about this the wrong way. He needed to make himself findable.

He needed to bait him.

The next morning, Remus spent too much on an over-hearty breakfast and a thick, strong coffee to replenish as much of his power as possible, before he changed into his older, English-styled robes and put on his quite recognisable green cloak though it was a sunny spring day. He left his suitcase locked safe inside the crypt, and with head held high and a bland expression, walked directly to the front entrance of the quaint little inn he and Gil had called home at the start of their strange affair. He took himself up the wooden stairs and strolled directly to the room they had used to share, set his wand hand upon the doorknob, and sparked a forceful _alohomora_ against the brass.

He had been avoiding active casting since arriving in Bucharest, but he pushed hard now against the fabric of reality, trying to maximise the reverberation of his magic.

Several things happened in quick succession then: the door was blown inward with force, hitting the wall behind it and ricocheting back again with a loud _thump_. The landlady was revealed within, standing placid at the centre of a whirlwind of suspended linens as she changed the bed with her wand, and as the door hit the wall she dropped the charm, startled, and screamed. The bed linens fell flat over the surfaces in the room as her concentration was lost. Remus held up a quelling hand and backed away from the door to reassure her, and as he stepped back, another door down the hall was flung open from within, revealing Gil, wide-eyed and pyjama-clad and half-shaved, with a towel slung around his shoulders and his jaw slack with surprise.

He gave an inarticulate shout at the sight of Remus, and ducked back into the room, presumably to retrieve his rigid, golden-red wand.

Remus smiled a dangerous hunter's smile, and spun in place.

He touched down on the cobbled backstreet behind the inn and waited, peering up at the building's facade--soon a window was flung up and Gil stuck his head and shoulders out, scanning the ground outside, for at such close range he would have felt the direction of Remus' casting.

He spotted the werewolf in a moment and extended his wand with an accusing stab. "Get back here!" he yelped, loud enough to carry through the street below. "I want my damned book!"

Remus' smile turned wickeder. He gripped his own lapel and pulled it aside so Gil could see the edge of the bundle of parchments concealed there. "Come and get it, then," he shouted up at the other man.

Gil screwed up his face in an angry scowl and ducked back into the window. Seeming almost an afterthought, he reappeared for a moment, called down, "Don't think I won't!" and vanished again, presumably to wipe the soap from his neck and to throw a robe on.

Remus huffed a soft laugh at the mental image of his old friend seething with anger and frustrated entitlement as he selected and donned one of his complex ensembles, and waited, smirking to himself.

It wasn't long before Gil emerged from the inn on foot in a simple robe, though, stalking with wand in hand toward where Remus stood. He had his eyes narrowed, suspicious. "So have you come to your senses, then?" he called from where he stood by the door.

"Oh yes, I think I have," Remus said, calm.

Gil half-lowered his wand. "Good," he said, seeming somewhat mollified. "Because I didn't do all that work for nothing, you know." He stepped forward and held out a hand. "Now, give it back and come inside and let's talk this over. We can get past this, Remus!"

"Is that what you want?" Remus asked.

Gil stepped closer again, and lowered his voice to an urgent hiss though they were alone in the empty backstreet. "You know it isn't going to be easy to forgive you for this," he said. "I trusted you, and you betrayed me! If you want to come back now I'm willing to give it a try, but you mustn't do anything like this ever again. And I don't want you going out alone again, it's too dangerous. We'll work together from now on."

Remus shook his head. "I don't think so, Gil."

Gil knit his brows together with confusion.

"I've told you I don't want to see you anymore," Remus murmured through tight lips, very quietly, as he stepped closer still. "If you want the rest of the manuscript, you're going to have to take it from me."

Gil blinked, surprised, and Remus spun in place.

He reappeared some ways down the tight backstreet with a _pop_ , and called out to his friend, "That is, unless you don't think you're a match for me!" before he spun in place again.

Gil narrowed his eyes and followed the magnetic buzz of their resonance.

Remus popped back into space a few streets away and waited until he heard and felt Gil's apparation, behind him. He whirled on his feet to face the other man, wand up, defensive, and in a moment, Gil attacked.

Remus deflected the other man's first inexpert hex with ease, and then another, before he spun himself out of space again, reappearing farther along the same street and quickly setting off at a half-jog.

Another _pop_ behind him as Gil apparated closer again. Remus felt a body-bind blast too-close to his shoulder, heard a woman scream and something crash as he twisted his spine again to throw himself forward through the space between.

Another few cross-streets away, Remus reappeared.

He looked back over his shoulder and waited, sucking in deep breaths.

_Pop!_

He spun again before his friend could get his bearings and continue the duel, this time touching down at the edge of the crowded market.

Another _pop_ as Gil caught up again.

Remus spun again, reappearing near the middle of the bustling market this time.

"Get back here, damn you--you coward!" Gil called from across the wide square, brandishing his wand. Passersby took note with uneasy eyes, moved away quickly, clearing the area between them.

Remus faced his old friend with his wand at the ready, hair ruffled and breathing heavily. The other man stepped towards him across the market square with his blue eyes narrowed. Quick and wordless, he tried to disarm Remus with a sloppily-aimed _expelliarmus_ , but the werewolf half-dodged the spell so that it blasted against a vendor's stall, collapsing the awning as its supports were blown away.

In the confusion of the crash and the crowd, Remus spun again, touching down this time at the far edge of the market. He watched as Gil trotted forward towards him, still able to feel the direction of his casting, but shading his eyes with one hand as he scanned the crowd.

Once he was past the tumbled market stall, the other man spotted Remus again and let off another ill-aimed hex with a frustrated cry before he realised the space between them was too great. The spell fizzled in the air before it could hit.

Remus watched him spin and vanish, and before Gil could rematerialise closer, he did the same, landing a number of streets away again--this time farther than any of the jumps he had taken yet, in a quiet and rundown residential street in a muggle district, a place which lay a carefully-calculated distance from the busy market.

He waited, nerves on edge, but felt nothing for long minutes. Surely, Gil couldn't feel their resonance at this range, couldn't tell where he would have landed. By gradually increasing the distance of his jumps, Remus had found the limit of their magnetic connection.

He spun again then, appearing a short distance from the edge of the market where he had last seen his friend before he turned this way and that, looking about himself for his pursuer.

He felt the snap of apparation again, and Gil touched down quite close before him then, lurching forward as if to grab him physically by the front of his robes.

Remus deflected his old friend's clutching hands by the simple expedient of knocking them away with an upward blow from his off-hand forearm, and then, once more, he twisted away on the balls of his feet, forcing himself to dematerialise again despite his growing exhaustion.

When he reappeared again, Remus held himself silent and still for a bare moment, sounding the air around him with the nerves in his forearms for any hint of vibration. He felt no nearby resonance from his lover-turned-enemy, though, and he thought he must have succeeded in putting enough distance between them that the other man wouldn't immediately feel where he had gone. He sucked in a deep breath to steady himself, and then he stepped quickly forward to set his hand on the brass doorknob of Gil's new accommodation.

With quick fingers, he slipped Sirius' knife into the keyhole to force the lock without casting, and then he stepped into the room, closing the door behind himself.

A few quick steps to cross the small room to the writing-desk by the tall mirror, another quick fumble-and-thrust with Sirius' delicate knife when he found the drawer locked, and in a moment, he had clutched his fingers tight round the rest of the manuscript.

As he straightened from the desk with a sigh of relief, a fat purse of gold caught his attention where it sat upon the nearby bureau. Remus eyed it for a moment, but in the end he left it, turning away with a frustrated grimace as he spun in place again.

Remus touched down a moment later with one foot upon the soft, lumpy earth of the abandoned-seeming cemetery at the far end of the large wizarding district that lay hidden, wedged into the centre of Bucharest. He stepped quickly to the crypt where he had locked his suitcase in and used Sirius' knife to force the lock again, quickly, his heart pounding with adrenaline.

He opened his small suitcase to reunite Gil's half of the manuscript with his own, and then he tugged the sheaf of blank parchment he'd used as bait from the breast of his robe, discarding it on the marble floor.

He found the nasturtium portkey where it was hidden in the interior pocket, and was about to snap the suitcase closed and to engage the thing, when he heard from the graveyard without a sudden _pop_ , loud in the silence of the sacred ground.

Damn and blast, Gil knew him too well! He set the phial that held the nasturtium down beside his open suitcase, and drew his wand before he pushed himself to his feet and turned to face the grated, gatelike door of the crypt.

Distantly, he realised that he had never known Gil to come here during their days in the city--the fact that his former friend knew it as a place he might go meant he must have tailed the werewolf somehow, some one or more of those nights or days when Remus had retraced his steps here. He might have even tailed him in recent days, might have watched him returning to the crypt to sleep these past nights, biding his time until he could retrieve his prize.

He shook his head, disturbed.

"Remus," he heard the other man call out. "I know you're here."

He stepped forward out of the shadow of the crypt's doorway.

"I've told you I want you to let me go," he rumbled, ominous, from where he stood. The other man spun to face the direction of the sound, wand up.

"Hand over the manuscript and I will," Gil called to him.

He shook his head. "I don't think so."

"You've no right to take it!" he yelped, brows drawn up in the middle with consternation. "We had an agreement, yeh can't go back on it now!"

Remus blinked, surprised by the sudden contempt he felt for his former friend.

Of course what Gil had done was near-unforgivable under the best of circumstances, and his refusal to agree to honesty going forward had pushed Remus too far for things to ever go back to the way they had been. But it wasn't until he'd seen this childish whingeing that he'd felt real disgust at the other man's character.

Utterly disabused now of every romantic notion he had ever had, Remus sighed, weary, and said, "I'm finished here. I'm going home. You'll find nothing for you if you follow me."

He threw up a white ward and turned away, back into the crypt.

And that was his fatal mistake.

He heard Gil cry out with frustration, with the effort of hard casting, but he ignored it and bent to close his suitcase.

He was knocked sideways by the force of Gil's blast breaking through his own wavelength-matched ward, and as the spell took effect, he felt his limbs locking, his joints freezing, his feet slipping up off the marble floor as everything seemed to slow--he felt suddenly as if he were underwater, paralysed by the _petrificus totalus_ and drifting slowly from the _levicorpus_.

He should never have taught his friend the combination.

A moment later, Gil stepped through the moonlight-white ward without disturbing it, without so much as rippling the surface. Remus felt his strong grip around his ankle, and then the other man was tugging hard, hauling him roughly out of the crypt and into a tailspin, so that he floated half-upended in the green-swathed space between the small, grim buildings.

Seething with frustration, unable to either see beyond the confines of his white ward or to dispel it while petrified, Remus listened intently to divine what was going on inside the crypt. He heard the latches on his suitcase snap open again, heard a shuffling of papers as the other man rifled through the manuscript to be sure it was intact. A pause, and then Gil appeared again in the doorway, stepping through the ward again as easily as if he'd cast it himself.

In one hand, he still held his golden-red wand at the ready. In the other, he clutched tight the small phial that held Remus' nasturtium portkey. He very certainly had the manuscript tucked securely into his own robe now.

Remus watched as Gil descended the few shallow marble steps that led up to the crypt and approached the place where he floated.

A quick lash of his wand, and the body-bind was dropped. Remus fell in a heap, onto his side, in the lumpy grass. He gasped a startled breath and heaved himself to his feet, exhausted by the chase and fumbling clumsily in his pocket for his wand.

Gil let him draw. His arms felt heavy, leaden from his exertions.

"Now listen to me, Remus," he snapped. "That's enough of this nonsense! Come back to the inn with me now and we can talk this over."

Remus shook his head. "Give me back my things."

"God, will yeh just _drop_ it!" He stepped closer then, tucking the phial into his waistcoat pocket and reaching out towards Remus with an open hand. "You're to do as I say from now on--now hand over your wand and let's go back to the inn before you embarrass yourself any more."

Knowing full well that he was unable to fight any longer, Remus sighed and lowered his own wand. "Very well," he said, his voice low and dangerous. "Take the bloody manuscript then, if it's so important to you. But I'm not going back to the inn with you, now or ever again."

"Don't say that!"

"You told me you would let me go if you had the manuscript."

"I've done all of this for you--to _help_ you!" Gil accused hotly. "You owe it to me to hear me out, at least!"

A soft huff of a laugh escaped him at the absurdity of the suggestion. "Goodbye, Gilderoy," he said, calm and quiet, before he turned to walk away.

"Stop!" Gil yelped. "Stop it, you get back here!"

Remus shook his head and kept walking.

He felt the resonant buzz of Gil gathering his magical energy then, and turned to put his wand up again, to attempt to deflect or to counter whatever the other man might cast though he knew he was weakened by hunger, slowed by the exertions of their chase--

A flash from Gil's golden-red wand as he spun, and Remus froze, stunned. He felt slowed, stoned, as high as if he was a delinquent prefect smoking cannabis-laced rollups with Sirius again. A single sharp yelp of a laugh escaped him as he realised what was happening, and he staggered backward, as slow as if he moved through treacle.

"I want you to forget we ever met!" Gil shouted in a pained voice, echoing resonant in Remus' head like a bell. "Forget everything that ever happened between us, forget the book and everything that went into it! You've just been whoring on the street here in Bucharest all this time!"

Remus felt the words like a blow, and he staggered back another step--but he didn't forget. "You don't mean that," he realised after a moment, slurring and slow.

"Of course I do!" Gil yelped, still holding his wand at the ready, stretched out in front of himself in a trembling grip. "Merrlin you're daft arren't you? I've been using you this whole time, from the moment I saw you sat in that café writin' in yer little book for all to see like any pretentious amateur! D'yeh think you're the first? Now forget it--forget everything and go back to where yeh came from!"

Remus didn't. He shook his head no, slow and headspinning, and staggered forward towards his friend. "I remember you told me once that one must _really mean it_ to pull that spell off," he said carefully, eyes locked on Gil's. "You don't _want_ me to forget it." 

He could tell from the tilt of his friend's brows that he was right.

He managed to push himself forward another step or two. Gil was barely more than arm's length away now, if Remus could only move his hand fast enough to grapple his wand--

"I'll tell you what I want, then, shall I?" Gil said in a husky stage-whisper, still making no effort whatsoever to conceal either his westerly inflection or the ache in his voice. "I want you to forget the bad parts of it and come home to me. Forget the times we lied to each other, and the times I made you do things you didn't want. And the times we fought. Everything was perfect between us--always." He narrowed his eyes, a wince rather than a glare, and in a softer voice he said, "I was the love of your life, and you want to come back to me." 

Remus felt the fog of the spell beginning to lift, but before he felt quite lucid again, there was a startling blast of _reducto_ or some similar spell from some unknown quarter--he tried to turn his head to find the source of it, but the muscles of his neck were unresponsive. Still trying to turn his head, agonisingly slow, he saw Gil curse creatively and lift an arm to shield his eyes as another blast _wommed_ sluggishly through the air, saw him turn away and run, saw the granite shrapnel of an exploded tombstone flying up uncanny-slow between them, and before the dust began to settle, he knew no more.

For a long time, he knew nothing of himself or of his surroundings.

When he woke, he found himself in a strange bed, in a strange room. Everything was strange to him. A strange young woman sat some distance from him, in an armchair by a window, reading a strange book. Unsure of this place and his position in it, he stayed silent, and waited, and watched her. After a time, she flipped a page. After another interminable stretch of time, a far-off door opened.

He realised that he must have been in a hotel suite. The open archway to the sitting area in the front of the suite seemed very distant.

The slender woman set her book aside and stretched, pushed her long, sleek silver hair back from her eyes.

"Philomena, dear," came a voice from the front, from the woman who had opened the door. "I have our potions--and I brought you some cinnamon buns!"

"Ah, thank you Anya," the silver-haired girl exclaimed, leaping up to meet the other at the door.

"I've been practising my apparation," the plump red girl said with a smile. "I'm sure I can take you side-along now. Do you want to go to the forest again this month?"

"I'd like that," Philomena said, leaning up to slide her arms around the other woman's neck, to kiss her sweetly, intimately.

He looked away, to give them their privacy, or to spare them embarrassment, aware that he would want the same courtesy.

"Oh--he's awake," the one called Anya said after a moment, with gentle censure in her voice. 

He looked up again to see Philomena stepping away from her friend, subdued now. Anya was moving towards the bed, and Philomena followed close behind.

"How are you feeling--better?" Anya asked.

"I'm not certain," he said, slowly and carefully. After a moment, he couldn't think of anything else to say, so he asked, "Do you know me?"

"Of course," Philomena said. "Don't you remember us? You helped us."

He blinked, frowned, shook his head slowly. "I'm sorry, no." He shook his head again. "I'm not certain that I remember... myself."

The two wolf-girls exchanged an alarmed glance.

"But you... you know me?" he asked again.

"Not well," Anya admitted. "We only met briefly. We never learned your name."

"We were calling you Mister Brown," Philomena put in.

"I can't stay here," he realised suddenly, half sitting up with a jerk. "He'll find me..."

"Who?" Anya asked, seating herself on the edge of the bed to press him gently back against the pillows. "The man from the cemetery?"

He shook his head. "I... I'm not..." He trailed off, uncertain.

"I wouldn't worry about him," Anya said, cold.

Philomena was gazing up at her friend with admiration now. "Anya scared him terribly!" she said with a proud smile.

"Oh," he said. After a moment, another thought occurred--"I have to go to... to Bistrița. To the pack there."

"What? Why Bistrița?" Philomena asked.

He blinked. "I... I'm supposed to go there... I'm not certain why..."

"No, you're supposed to _rest_ for now," Anya told him, authoritative. "You're safe here." She reclaimed the small paper package from the other woman and set it on the side table by the bed. "Eat those. We'll be back with more food for you soon."

Philomena seemed disappointed to lose her prize, but she regarded the man with earnest compassion and nodded sweetly. "Eat," she told him. "You'll feel better."

"There's a pot under the bed if you need the toilet," Anya said then, matter-of-fact. "And there's water on the stand. Come along, dear," she said to the other woman as she stood and turned to go, and in a moment Mister Brown was left alone with himself.

_Two Years Later_

"Remus, my dear boy," the old man said then, rummaging in a pocket with one hand, "You asked me what happened, during the time that you've lost."

He nodded.

The old man sighed. "This has been very a difficult mission for you, I'm afraid..."

Remus felt cold. With his hands once more braced flat on the table to steady himself, he asked, "What do you mean, _mission_?"

Dumbledore-- _Albus_ , Remus corrected himself--gave him a sympathetic look as he drew something out of his robes: a small bottle, containing a floaty, silvery fluid. "Here," he said. "This one ought to explain things."

"This may be difficult for you," Albus said, a warning in his tone, as he stared out the window behind his desk with his back to Remus. "Especially considering your past."

Remus glanced up from the dossier he'd been studying. "Why me, then?"

"Precisely _because_ of your past, my dear boy," he said as he turned. "You are uniquely suited to this mission. We know that he's targeted men before, and he has a reputation for, shall we say, purchasing the charms of other magical beings. You're very likely to appeal to his tastes if you cultivate the right sort of appearance," Albus pointed out.

"Hm," Remus said, pursing his lips with irritation. It didn't matter, of course, that a flash blond chaser didn't much appeal to _his_ tastes.

"His latest book was published this past summer. Now that he's finished promoting it, he's sure to be on the lookout for another victim, and we have word that he's travelling in eastern Europe at the moment. I'd like you to return to Romania. You'll reestablish contact with the pack in Bistrița and continue your research there--it will make you a more appealing target. We'll contact you with a new assignment when we learn his exact whereabouts."

Remus nodded. "Is he a legilimens?"

"Funny you should ask that," Albus said with a rueful smile. "We don't know his exact method of operation, either. He does spend considerable time grooming his victims, from what we can tell, but it seems most likely that he would be able to read from them directly, given the level of detail in his books. We must take precautions."

"I see," Remus said, with a sardonic note. Slowly, pointedly, he cast his gaze upon contents of the tall cabinet open against one wall of the crowded office, then back to meet Albus' blue eyes.

"You know, despite your marks, you've turned out to be the cleverest of all the lads in your year," Albus said with a wink. 

Remus huffed a laugh. "I'll bet you say that to all the boys you show your Penseive to."

The old man raised an eyebrow at him, unamused.

"Why not send an occlumens?" Remus drawled coolly, deliberately deflecting now.

"The only one I have available to me isn't at all suited to this task."

"Hm." Remus nodded his understanding. "How much will you remove?" he asked.

"Only the knowledge of the true nature of this mission, I imagine. We'll put you in his way, with your research in Bistrița and elsewhere as a front, and if all goes well, you'll take one another's bait. You _will_ be required to uncover his dishonesty and to thwart his intentions with no foreknowledge of the situation, but there shouldn't be any need to remove memories of your past. Unless you'd _like_ me to remove something else?"

Remus' breath caught in his throat. He might have given anything for such an opportunity, once, except that-- "I assume you're speaking of--what happened at the end of the war." He sighed. "But I am quite certain that I'll need to keep the memories of that experience, in order to do what you're asking. Otherwise there was very little point in choosing an agent who's been made a villain's plaything before, was there?"

Albus nodded sagely--Remus had passed what must have been a test of his fortitude by refusing the offer. "You understand that if you are unable to remember your real assignment, then your motivation for attracting him will have to be genuine," the old man said then. "I shall have to make some _additions_ to your memory as well."

"Likely not as many as you think," Remus said, wry. Hardly the first time he would be required to take gold from a friend, after all. Ignoring the old man's raised brows, he closed the dossier and laid it back on the desk. "As to my compensation," he began, cold. "I believe you know this is a lot to ask, Albus. I'm not working for wolfsbane and spare coin this time."

"What do you want?"

"Land," Remus said, immediately, his voice gravelly. "In the wilderness somewhere. Here, at home."

"I can arrange transport to Paris again," Albus said then, businesslike, as if it were settled. "You'll have to make your way from there."

Remus nodded, stone-faced. "That won't be a problem," he said.

"Are you sure you're prepared to do this?"

"I've laid down with dogs for you before, Albus," Remus told him, mild. "Why should it be any different now?"

"Well then, let's get started, shall we?" the old man said, drawing his weird fingerbone wand. "Now, you'll only want to work during the day. You want idle men, not labourers, and _never_ muggles..."

Remus blinked himself back to the table, to the silent street and Albus' company and the now-empty bottle. "But," he said, slow and thoughtful, "if _you_ only manipulated the memory of my briefing for the mission... then that means... I must have failed."

Albus nodded again, solemn. "You did fail to apprehend him, that's true. It appears that he eventually escaped you in Bucharest. It's likely there that he attacked you. But we have proof now, of what we suspected, and we know a good deal more about how he operates."

"I don't remember," Remus said, still feeling at least half-stoned.

"Indeed. It seems that he must have altered a good deal of your memory--removed it, in fact, and rather inexpertly. You were left disconnected from your former self, from the memories that should have remained to you. It is a possible outcome of a memory charm performed hastily, or left unfinished. When I found you, you knew nothing of your past beyond these last couple of years, nor did you know me. In fact, I don't believe you knew yourself--you were using an alias." The old man pushed his specs up--James-like, Remus thought sadly. "As time goes by, the memories that are left to you may become clearer, but those memories which were deliberately removed may never return."

Remus digested this, unsurprised given the circumstances but still disturbed. "Did I... run wild? Did I hurt anyone?"

Albus regarded him with clear pity. "I don't know. I found you in the company of a pack of werewolves, but they seemed a reasonable enough folk. I believe that if you did lose control of yourself to the beast at one point, they must have served as a stabilising influence."

Remus drew a ragged breath.

"But you must understand that what was done to you was done deliberately. The damage is... geometrical in nature. This memory loss was unquestionably caused by a spell--it is not the result of lycanthropic fugue. It is entirely likely that you remained fully lucid and in control of yourself before the memories were removed."

Remus couldn't help but wonder if it might be equally likely that he had not remained himself, that he had bungled his mission and _then_ gone off and lost himself to the wolf for a time, that he had somehow recovered, only to discover he couldn't bear the memory of it. He might have tried to remove the memories himself, or caused another to remove them, because their content hurt him too badly.

But if that was the case, wouldn't he have stripped out his time with Sirius as well? Wouldn't those be among the deliberately-obliterated memories that might never return?

Albus was leaning close again, concern written across his brow. "I'm sorry for the part I played in what has happened to you," he said. "I owe you a debt, and I want to repay it."

"How?" Remus asked.

"I have a position for you," he said. "I need your help. You must return to England with me as soon as possible. The phoenix will fly again, one day soon."

"Voldemort is dead," Remus said, voice flat.

"I have known for a long time that he might return one day. I fear that day may finally be drawing near."

For the first time, it occurred to Remus to ask, "How long has it been?" How many years had he lost?

"I'm not yet certain how long the gap in your memory may be," Albus said. "But it has been nearly ten years since Lily Potter defeated the so-called dark lord."

Remus had no reply, but he felt his chest tighten with grim pride at hearing his dead friend's name honoured so. Somehow he had never heard it framed that way, in those confusing weeks at the end of the war.

"Now, if you're feeling better, we'll return to your cottage--"

"I don't understand," Remus said. "What cottage?

"The one this mission bought you, my dear boy. You must recuperate from your--adventures. I've been able to recruit the assistance of another expert legilimens. You're acquainted with him, in fact. We will do what we can to heal your mind so that you may recover what you can of your memories. You'll be able to help with the effort again soon enough."

Remus wasn't sure he wanted to go along with this--he certainly didn't want to return to the war that didn't seem anything like ten years ago to him and he wasn't at all sure that recovering his memories was in his best interest--but he didn't have any other option, as far as he could tell. He nodded woodenly. "Very well."

"Ah, excellent! I _knew_ you would do the right thing, Remus." He drew his wand from his sleeve again and casually dispelled a ward so clear and undistorted that Remus hadn't been consciously aware of it. As it dropped, a few pedestrians materialised on the street, a dog appeared on the corner. A man came into view, sitting alone all along at a nearby table, dressed all in black and with a half-drunk glass of lemon squash in front of him--Remus was startled to realise it was Severus Snape. He looked about thirty or thirty-five now. He wondered how old he looked himself.

"Severus!" Albus called pleasantly. "We've finished."

"How long has it been empty?" Remus asked as the old man strolled through the dooryard gate ahead of him, spry as anything.

Albus looked a little surprised. "A number of years, if I'm not mistaken. I haven't seen the inside since it was vacated. I'm afraid it may be a bit--"

"Rough?" Remus asked, amused. "That's alright with me."

The old man unwarded the door with another tap of his weird fingerbone wand, but he stepped back, handed over the iron keys on their simple ring and let Remus open it himself and enter first.

It was dark, for the shutters were all closed tight. It was dusty, and it smelled a little like old books and small mammals. It was very much what one would expect of a long-abandoned cottage on a high and treacherous ridge deep in the Yorkshire dales.

It would do nicely.

Albus was fumbling through the pockets of his robe now. As Remus turned to thank him, he pulled out a generous handful of coin and an emerald-green leathern potions case. "Now, I have a small retainer for you here--"

Remus accepted the gold without comment--he hadn't much concern for his pride, not any longer.

"--and Severus has sent along your first dose of wolfsbane potion, as well as a few other necessities: healing elixirs, a mild sleeping draught, something extra for the pain, I believe." He passed the case over, held up a finger in warning. "I am to instruct you not to mix these with other potions, including liquor. Severus has calculated the dosages exactly."

Remus nodded and immediately disregarded the advice with all the casual certainty of an addict. "I don't believe I remember the last time I would have used wolfsbane," he commented, disturbed by the implication. He remembered, of course, the days during the war when he had first begun to use it, when he had been pressed too far in order to repay the old man's kindness--when his first assignment with the wild wolves had wrecked his life and turned his dearest friend against them all. The potion had still been so new then that it was unknown to Greyback and his ilk, and the strange awareness it granted had made the perfect advantage for a werewolf-spy in those days. He must have had it since, during at least some of the time he had lost, for he knew wouldn't have allowed himself to go without it if it were at all within his power, but it frightened him that he couldn't confirm that.

"There have been considerable improvements to the formula in recent years," Albus said. "This new potion can help to alleviate much of the pain, when taken correctly--and I'm told it should taste a bit like liquorice."

Remus nodded, unwilling to show his scepticism. He would believe it if it proved true. "When do you want me?" he asked.

"We shall see, Remus," Albus said. "Another candidate has resurfaced. It may be crucial to keep him close this year--I fear he may have been compromised." He sighed. "I didn't expect the poor man to return to us after his sabbatical."

Remus nodded, frowned vaguely. He would have liked to see Harry, to reassure himself that the boy had indeed lived. Until the day Albus might choose to reveal him, the child was only a legend. This should be the year that he would come to Hogwarts, if Remus had his arithmancy right, but for years after that Halloween, it had been whispered in disreputable places that the dark lord had succeeded in eliminating the worst of the rebels, that he had chosen to exile himself until the time was right to execute his coup once and for all--that the unconfirmable story of the Potters' baby was a convenient fiction. Even Remus had begun to believe it, probably many years ago to judge by what had apparently happened since, and his old schoolmaster turning up with this fantastic tale of long-lost muggle relatives and ancient blood-bonds had not yet thoroughly convinced him. Albus Dumbledore often played the long con--and Remus didn't remember Lily ever mentioning a sister.

"I need you here, in the meantime," Albus was saying. "You must rest, recover your strength--and what you can of your memory. Reestablish contact with the old crowd. Keep a weather-eye out for signs of discontent among the werewolves."

Remus nodded, smiled tightly despite his unease. "Of course." He stepped across the room then to peer into the hearth, to fiddle with the flue handle.

"And--aha! I knew I had it here somewhere." Albus somehow retrieved a large round clay pot from behind the lapel of his robe then and set it carefully upon the writing desk near the door. "Hagrid asked me to offer you this. It contains a number of fertilised chicken eggs, along with his compliments, and a lovely card which I believe he made himself. You'll need to maintain the warming charm, of course, and rotate them thrice per day." He gave Remus a significant look over his specs. "They'll be entirely dependent upon you until they're grown."

Remus regarded the package with some discomfort, but he said, "I shall thank Hagrid personally, when I see him."

The old man nodded, satisfied. "Severus will arrive tomorrow afternoon for your first session."

"Hm," he said.

"I recommend that you cooperate with him. We need you at your best." 

Remus turned to face the old man fully. He cleared his throat and pursed his lips before he said, "I don't believe I want those memories, Albus--and frankly I wish you would take back what you've already given."

Albus regarded him measuringly for a moment. "That will necessarily be your choice," he allowed, "once you have the whole picture." Finally, from yet another impossible pocket of his navy travelling robe, he produced a book, a large hardcover volume with the jacket long gone, so that it looked quite plain at first glance. "I'm sorry that we weren't able to recover your field notes, but I thought that it might help you to read this. He published it last year."

With stiff fingers, Remus reached out and took the volume. "Very well," he said, reluctant but resigned.

"It's difficult to say how much of it is accurate, but it may help to jog your memory."

Remus nodded. He cleared his throat. "I'd like to be alone now, please."

"Of course, my dear boy," Albus said, smiling in a way that seemed calculated to appear gentle. "Floo me at the school if you need anything."

Remus nodded his understanding, and the old man drew his wand and prepared to disapparate.

When he was gone, Remus seated himself in one of the dusty armchairs by the cold, dead hearth, and, with his fingers trembling and his heart in his throat, he opened the crisp volume to the first page.


End file.
